Sexual Harassment, Chapter 999

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Feminists did not realize how much the law had tilted in favor of the victims until they found themselves on the side of the accused. Many were in the disingenuous position of arguing that Paula Jones really didn't have anything to complain about when asked to "kiss it" but that Anita Hill just a few years earlier deserved our wholehearted concern.

I knew the public had just had it with the he-said, she-said battles when Juanita Broaddrick gave interviews last year in which she said that then Governor Bill Clinton had forced himself on her, and the controversy lasted barely 1 1/2 news cycles. But even as I see the word quagmire forming in my brain, I realize we can't abandon the field. As a former Connecticut state legislator and two-time Democratic nominee for Congress, Niedermeier can probably take care of herself. But there are plenty of women out there with fewer resources who can't. Just last week the women at two Ford Motor Co. plants finally got the firm to acknowledge that life for them had been hellish--that they should no longer be subjected to obscene graffiti, verbal and physical abuse and retaliation for complaining about it. In a settlement, Ford agreed to pay them nearly $8 million and to ensure that three years from now, 30% of its supervisors will be women. So just because we're tired of Clinton doesn't mean we should tire of the cause. Boredom shouldn't make us forget that bad things still happen to good women.