What I Learned at the Sexual Harassment Seminar

I’m sure some of you will take one look at the title and know what this is going to be about. Far be it from me to disappoint you.
Those of you who follow politics closely are probably familiar with Herman Cain, the erstwhile hopeful for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2012. As you may be aware, Mr. Cain was leading the polls for the nomination when his candidacy was upended by allegations of past indiscretions with female employees in the corporation he represented in the late 1990s. I believe I have a bit of insight into those allegations, as well as their relationship to the “female imperative” discussion taking place in some of the better blogs on the internet.
Mr. Cain insisted that he was largely “unaware” of the allegations made against him, and that he was further completely out of the loop on the settlement paid to one of his accusers. Most commentators found these statements to be ludicrous, but upon closer inspection Mr. Cain’s statements have the ring of truth.
In the same time frame in which Mr. Cain was accused of sexual harassment, I was also employed by a mid-sized corporation headquartered out of Atlanta, GA, the same location where Mr. Cain was employed. As part of the training for all employees, I was required to attend “sexual harassment” training sessions. And herein lies the rub, so to speak.
The sessions I attended were primarily videos, slickly produced, and with corporate counsel’s seal of approval. These sessions were tailored around the current court doctrines coming out of state and federal courts in the Atlanta area. And here is what I learned….
1) Women NEVER lie about sexual harassment. The pain of having to disclose sexual harassment is SO GREAT that no woman would EVER lie about it. Hence the accusation of sexual harassment by a woman is in itself prove positive that sexual harassment occurred.
2) Women often do not realize they have been sexually harassed until they receive a negative report on their job performance. Only when she reflects as to why her job performance has been poor does a woman realize she has been a victim of sexual harassment, which prevented her from doing her job properly.
3) The “reasonable man” standard of common law is outdated, and should be replaced with a “reasonable woman” standard in matters of sexual harassment law.
4) A man may sexually harass a woman without any knowledge or intent of doing so. Only the woman can tell is she is being sexually harassed. This does NOT excuse the behavior of the offending male.
Okay, I’m sure you can see where this is going. Every quarter my fellow employees and I would receive our performance reviews. As a rule, the womyn all got positive reviews, for obvious reasons. If, however, a woman somehow received a negative review, we would all wait around to see which poor schlub was going to lose his job for having “sexually harassed” her.
What does this have to do with Mr. Cain? Well, as I said, his corporation was also operating out of Atlanta. At least one of the two accusers was a “serial harassee” who had filed previous complaints and received cash and prizes. Now was this company going to fire a high-ranking African-American executive, or would they just pay the accuser off? After all, the accusation proved the crime……
As for the feminist imperative…. Never once was it even suggested that a woman might sexually harass a man (or another woman). It was specifically stated that womyn NEVER lie about such matters. The common law doctrine of a thousand years was discarded for this new system. And it all served to ensure that womyn were immune from any negative performance reviews and could remove any male employee in their way at any time, with no evidence whatsoever other than an accusation. Call it the new witch hunt, it’s just that the witches are the ones doing the hunting now.