Harrassment Suits

Q: Along the lines of this discussion... has anyone seen the movie "OLEANNA" starring William H. Macy? I believe it was originally a stage play. The plot involves a university professor who becomes involved in a career-destroying dispute over sexual harrassment placed by a very disturbed (but very bright) female student i know that it's fiction... But even so, the story line seems to me to point out some of the, uh.., weaknesses to be found in contemporary views (and laws) concerning gender relations

A: i found the film a bit annoying but I thought the premise was facinating. Every time the professor dug himself out, he did so by falling in the hole where he got the dirt. It's funny; I don't read much these days anywhere about sexual harrassment suits. I'm sure they still happen, but perhaps we're consumed with other news at the moment. The suits may not be getting top biling, but they seem to be coming one after the other. I WILL tell you that, back in the darker ages, I was personally acquainted with a senior (to me) male manager whose behavior towards> several women was highly inappropriate. A few women in my division left as a result. At least one of them told the division head. t was dealt with as follows: he was transferred into an equally prestigious job in another division. Nothing was ever said, although we all wondered for the longest time why there was suddenly this directive from above that everyone had to undergo sexual harrassment training sexual harrassment DID happen. And in the case i was familiar

with, it had real consequences. The women involved all> made career changes they might not have otherwise, simply because they saw no other way to escape it than to leave the company. There was no>> process for lodging a complaint against a senior manager for this kind> of thing. Who might be your boss. Indeed. But, things are changing for the better now that SH isn't as hidden as it once was. It seems to me that in correcting a wrong, society often swings too far in the oppositie direction until, at some point, there's enough pressure to moderate. Perhaps we've reached - or begun to reach that point with sexual harrassment. Perhaps we're approaching that