In a remarkable display of bad judgment, I read the sexual harrassment complaint against Bill O'Reilly in its entirety. My first thought was, "Ew!" (OK, my second through hundredth thoughts were also "ew!" because no one needs to have that mental picture.) But after successfully repressing my gag reflex, I had to ask: Why did she go back to work for him?
I quickly supressed this question, thinking it made me a Bad Bad Person. I'm not into blaming the victim, and if O'Reilly did what the suit claims he did than there is no excuse for his actions. But the whole thing still troubles me. She managed to escape the hostile work environment and go work somewhere else (CNN), where she was better paid and didn't have to deal with O'Reilly, who I imagine is not fun to deal with even if he's not constantly begging you for phone sex. Richard Cohen's column in today's Washington Post brilliantly expresses the problem I have with the whole thing, so I won't rehash his every argument, but here it is in a nutshell: Women are not powerless. She had the power to exit from the situation, and she exercised that power. Good for her. But then she chose to reenter it, and to allow herself to be a victim again.
Let me reiterate that I'm not saying there's any excuse for what O'Reilly is said to have done (can you tell I'm well-versed in libel law?). And personally, I get no small amount of joy in seeing O'Reilly exposed as the worst kind of hypocrite. I'm just saying that the victim contributed to her own disempowerment by not doing something about the situation sooner and by ignoring basic common sense.
OK, dismounting from high horse now.
Well, are we totally throwing out the possibility that she went back to work for him because she was pretty sure she could get him on tape saying horrible things? Because that's kind of empowering maybe.
Or maybe she needed the job to pay the bills and could tolerate it, until she found a new job. From some of the post's Andrew's blog and personal experience, it often seems like you can put up with a lot when you have bills to pay.
That's the thing, though, is she already had a job that paid MORE than the job she went back to.
Maybe she's just crazy. Whatever happened to CRAZY?
Maybe she's a Republican. Or is that the same as crazy?
I'm with Big Pinz. What ever happened to crazy? People can just be CRAZY you know.
I'm with Andrew. And in the end, it will pay off. The moral? It pays to be sleazy as long as somebody with more money than you who happens to occupy a position of authority and is a well-known public figure is willing to be slightly sleazier
Isn't she a Democrat? I thought that was O'Reilly legal smear strategy, to make her out to be a political troublemaker trying to embarass O'Reilly and the Fox News Network in general (as if they needed help doing that)