N.O.W. Bashes Letterman. Really?
I started watching “The Joy Behar Show” recently and have enjoyed most of the content thus far. Tonight Joy had the president of N.O.W. and a sexual harassment lawyer talking about the Letterman issue with comedian Nick Dipaolo. In her last couple of shows Joy has talked about this topic a bit as has everyone else. To this point her position has been that while Letterman may not have pressured the women that worked on his show to have sex with him, the women that did not have sex with him either because they were not approached, or turned him down were the real victims because perhaps they didn’t have the same opportunities for advancement, on air time, etc.
I can see this point. Perhaps this was the case, and if someone were to come forward and make a claim in this vein, they might be due some compensation. That’s just it though. No one has ever come forward. Now if someone does pop up tonight, tomorrow, or ten years from now, I’ll have to think about this again, but until that happens, we should leave the man alone.
So now the president of N.O.W., Terry O’Neil, has blasted Letterman over his admission that he cheated on his wife with women on his show. She would like CBS to take a look at it’s own board of directors, and if at least half of them are not women, “half of them need to be made women immediately.” Now getting past the logistics of having these men have sex changes, it’s just not going to happen overnight. In any case the suggestion that you should take X number of people and remove them from their positions simply because of their anatomy is ludicrous.
How are we ever going to come to a place of equality when the organization that is supposed to represent women has this as their very first “solution” to a case of sexual harassment that hasn’t even begun to be proven? Ms. O’Neil wants to fire X number of men and replace them with X number of women. I’m not saying there isn’t X number of qualified women that currently work for CBS that could do as good if not a better job, but what about Mr. X and his compatriots that have just lost their job after working Y number of years for CBS? Is this what equality is for this group?
Now let’s turn to Gloria Allred, billed as a “Victims’ Rights Attorney.” I’d imagine to get on a television show that Ms. Allred has plenty of experience in this area of law, and I’m going to assume she has done much good for the world. I’m the last person to deny that sexual harassment takes place, and when it is identified, I believe the best thing to do is to shut it down hard and fast. Still, when Nick Dipaolo was doing his shtick he must have referred to women as “girls” and Ms. Allred shouted him down for demeaning women. Please. Show me where it’s written that you can only refer to a woman as a woman and not a girl after Z number of years on this planet. Same goes for men and boys.
We will never make progress in gender relations, race relations, ethnic relations, and sexual identity relations (I’m sure I’m missing a few relations) until we stop freaking out over every supposed indiscretion. Just because it might taste like chicken doesn’t make a snake a chicken. Every affair is not an instance of harassment. Again, this might be, but until at least one person comes forward to make that claim I say leave the guy alone. I’d imagine his wife will be dealing out punishment enough.