Conservatives Say Sexual Harassment Does Not Exist

While Herman Cain, like Clarence Thomas before, claims he has not engaged in sexual harassment, he does not go as far as his conservative supporters who claim there is no such thing as sexual harassment.


In the National Review, John Derbyshire wrote: "Is there anyone who thinks sexual harassment is a real thing? Is there anyone who doesn't know it's all a lawyers'ramp, like 'racial discrimination'? You pay a girl a  compliment nowadays, she runs off and gets lawyered up." Is groping a woman and offering her a job in exchange for sex a compliment? Apparently so, according to the National Review.


This leads one to wonder: do these conservative Republicans think the victims of pedophilia are just a bunch of whiny money-grubbers who lawyered up? Do they think pedophilia is not a "real thing?" 


And then there is conservative talk show host, Laura Ingraham, who said: "We have seen this movie before and we know how it ends. It always ends up being an employee who can't perform or who under-performs and is looking for a little green." 


Demonizing the victim is a classic strategy. If the victim is poor or has financial difficulties, she is apparently fair game because the harasser then can claim she accused him only to get a pay-off. Are murderers exonerated because the victim was poor and lived in an unsafe neighborhood? When did US conservatives change  "the rule of law" to the point that a victim's financial status becomes a factor? If a Lexus runs a red light and collides with a 1987 pickup truck, are we to presume it must be the fault of the pickup driver?


I guess it is no big surprise that Rush Limbaugh does not recognize sexual harassment as the Neanderthal crime it is, but as a political tool. He said: "You know what sexual harassment is? You know what it really is? It'a political tool. It is a political tool invented by the left. And - for the express pur...(sic) - just like political correctness is a political tool of the left to shut people down, sexual harassment is a political tool of the left to get rid of people or to score money gains, whatever is most desired." I get it. Privacy, respect, decency, honor, and courtesy are all "political tools" of the Big Bad Left. (Please note: I refrained from making any cheap references to "tools" in this context.)


Apparently, sexual harassment is just another "inconvenient truth" the neoconservatives deny. To them, it ranks right up there with other things that do not exist, things like evolution, pollution, racism, and global warming.

(The above quotations are taken from an article by Paul Rosenberg.)