Sex, lies and tweets: Why sexual harassment will never be okay

I'll admit: I have some personal baggage (is there any other kind) that makes me react severely whenever a man lies to me. This is both good and bad - good because I run away from jerks but bad because I tend to suspect, perhaps more than I should, that a fair portion of the men out there are less than angelic.

It would be unprofessional to launch into too much personal history, so I'll skip right to the professional aspect of my life, the part that enjoys male colleagues as much or more than my fellow females. I've always prided myself on being "one of the guys" one minute, a lady the next. This is one reason I think I did relatively well covering Wall Street. I knew when to hold 'em, when to fold 'em, so to speak, never carrying a wink too far but then again, knowing when a skirt is better than slacks.

Decent men in the businessworld understand this game, and never take it too far. They have wives, girlfriends, sisters, mothers and they are learning, with every passing decade, that the "Mad Men" days ended long ago.

So it is with great heartache that I found out this week that a Facebook "friend" had admitted to sexually harassing at least two female scientists with whom he interacted. I have/had never met this FB friend in person, but when he friended me, I was flattered. I like to think someone's reading my stuff, especially a somewhat famous reporter, at least famous amongst the Nerd Ranks.

Now, this person is not alone in the world of misogyny and pain inflicted on females, but his particular stripe of criminality -- criminal in the emotional sense -- came because, as a science writer pointed out, the young are vulnerable and their trust should not be abused. I am paraphrasing; she said it far more eloquently.

She also pointed out that women in positions of power should not exploit the relatively unpowerful positions of the young men who come to us, some for advice, others for jobs, some for something in between.

In my experience, which is all I have, far more men have wanted something out of me than vice-versa, without being sincere or transparent as to their intent - whether it was the boss on a secretarial job who tweaked my elbows, sat on my desk to dictate and then, after I asked him to please get off, fired me the following day; or the aforementioned male reporter, who "friended" one of his victims, only to show her the very seediest antithesis of that word.

This gets back to the trickier, messier part: if some male has lied to us, as a young girl, then the lies that follow are magnified; and every lie becomes a knife wound. My hunch is that the perpetrators ("perps" for short) sense this vulnerability, and sadistically choose their targets for low self-esteem as much as for their youth, looks, what have you.

Why do I bring this all up? What does it have to do with journalism? Everything.

Because women who are trying to claw their way up the ranks not only deserve a fair shake, but deserve respect. It's not enough to lash out privately; we must climb up and shake our fists at the wind: "You will not be dishonest. You will not speak inappropriately to me. And you will not touch me. Not me, not my elbows, nothing."

I firmly believe that young women will have it easier as time goes by, but not easy enough. As Pres. Carter so aptly pointed out recently, women are raped on college campuses and these instances are going unreported. How many women are being desexualized, as Pres. Carter has brought to light? And here in the US, how many of us are overly valued for our sex only to be devalued on the sunset side of menopause?

To all the men out there with goodness in them; for every kind, decent, honest and honorable son, father, brother, husband, boyfriend and employee: keep doing right. Show your fellow men how to treat women. The world will never have enough of that.

The gentleman that is Letterman

The morning after Dave had interviewed Pres. Carter, I told my mom, who seems to respect my opinion on the subject of interviewing techniques because of my long journalism career (and our strong genetic link), that "he's the best interviewer on late night. Hands down. Followed by Chelsea, then Kimmel."

When Chelsea gave Piers that now-famous smackdown, "You need to pay attention to your guests!" I thought immediately of Letterman. Ms. Handler is very adept at putting her guests as the center of attention, and like Dave, will quickly say "enough about me" if guests get too inquisitive about the host.

Dave is the best interviewer on late night because he's a fantastic listener. He doesn't just nod as if trying to make the time pass, or resort to funny voices or childish dances with Justin Timberlake, but he actually puts the guest front and center. Now, if your late night cuppa tea is showbiz razzle dazzle, then perhaps yes, you want a late night host who can put on 47 different voices, play 17 musical instruments and inspire Stephen Colbert to throw pennies down his shirt.

But that is not what I want, and ever since Thursday's sad announcement, I've felt very cheated host-wise. Coming so soon after Chelsea's announcement that she won't renew her E contract -- news only mildly buffered by her agent's supposedly having talked to a dozen potential suitors, and Handler's relatively young age -- I wanted to indulge in self-pity Big Time.

But this isn't about me. Let me see if I can act like Dave and make it about the guest, in this case him.

He has listened to everyone from Regis to supermodels, Johnny Depp to the senior Mrs. Letterman, with equal amounts of curiosity and respect. I always got the feeling it was his mother, and perhaps his father, who instilled in him long ago that one should pay attention to his guest. This probably started in the family livingroom in Indiana, many years ago, when that gap-toothed kid sought the big time out west, and then east.

It's ironic that I would tell my mom how great his interviewing skills are -- to which Mom would remark, "I used to not know how smart he was, and then I realized, 'wow, he really is." -- just a few days prior to this announcement. I'd therefore like to see Dave do occasional specials, perhaps leaning more on the interview and less (but not too much less) on the comedy, maybe in the manner of a Bill Maher interview when he brings out an author before starting with the roundtable for the night. Dave would be very effective at that.

Perhaps he could start with Jennifer Lawrence, whom he's wrapped up in a blanket and nearly interviewed under the covers already. After all, it's a testament to his charm that he can still get the darling Lawrence to flirt with him years after Drew Barrymore did her little dance. And she's not the only one--heck, I think I saw Johnny Depp flirting with him Thursday night.

But clearly, Dave's heart is tied up elsewhere.

For, after delivering his sad news to us, he made my sides split once again: "What this means now is Paul and I can be married!"



Photo: A young David Letterman after accepting his Emmy for  Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program,
1987, photo by Alan Light, via Flickr/Wikimedia Commons: (http://www.flickr.com/photos/alan-light/210403909/in/set-72157594230529525)