Saturday, January 6, 2018

My Thoughts on the Sexual Harassment Allegations

There is a lot to cover in the whole scandals against a constantly increasing number of men and I’m not sure if I’ll trend as carefully as I should. It is hard to know what to think and there is so much always changing with it over and over again. Maybe I should start with a history of the whole thing.

Long before Harvey Weinstein became a synonym with sexual harassment, there was a man named Bill Cosby who was no longer considered the great man that we thought he was. Numerous women started accusing him of rape and similar crimes. Why is this relevant to what would come later? It is because you never know what could wind up happening with people you once respected like him.

It can be hard for me to have something other than mixed feelings about all this. Now you might think that surely I should just have a hatred of whoever is accused. But what if I like the person? Plus, you’d have to wonder if all of these are true. Sure, some may seem true and most probably are. The more people who accuse someone of sexual harassment, you’d think that would make it more likely that all of them are true. But there is still the possibility that some of the accused are innocent.

Ryan Seacrest is an example of what could be false in this whirlwind of sexual allegations. Maybe it was just the one non news source that I heard about it. But it made it seem like the supposed victim was wanting hush money instead of coming forward with this. If he doesn’t pay the money, she would tell people. But why ask for hush money? If you could tell someone about what happened to you, why would you even ask for hush money? Plus, if you are wanting him to look guilty by saying that it isn’t true, just remember that people will deny what isn’t true as it would be highly moronic to say that you did something terrible that you didn’t do. Remember Amanda Knox?

What does all this mean for women? Some wonder if things will go back to the way things were. I sure hope not. But things could still be bad. For one, some supposedly aren’t wanting to hire women now that they are afraid they will be accused of sexual harassment. If that’s your takeaway, clearly you aren’t learning things in this world. Remember that sexual discrimination is a thing too. Will women earn more of the jobs that men once used to? Will they earn the same amount of money or more than men do? One can hope.

I am also wondering if any women will be accused of sexual harassment. My mother doesn’t think so as they aren’t in positions of power in the first place. But I don’t know if it will happen and probably would rather it not happen.

It is hard to keep track of all of the people affected by this and what the reactions are for the various people. Some are instantly fired. ABC got rid of The Great American Baking Show for the rest of the season leaving a two hour gap on the schedule because of the allegations against a person. Yet they still made the most recent Bachelor in Paradise season even after its scandal. I don’t know if blindly firing everyone accused of sexual harassment is right. While it does send a message that this type of behavior isn’t tolerated, it also makes me worry that you aren’t researching it and making sure that’s what for sure happened with these people. Make sure that the accused are guilty.

Another thing to remind people of is something called the Hollywood blacklist. A long time ago, when someone in Hollywood either was or accused of being a Communist, they wouldn’t be hired by anyone in the industry. You’d think that the sexual harassment thing would be a new version of it. The key thing that is different here is that these people would deserve it only if a very important thing is met first: the accused are all guilty. Another thing to note is that some are sorry and all will need to do something with their lives and if they can’t get jobs anywhere, that’s bad. If these people are willing to change and stop their terrible behavior, never to do it again, maybe a comeback would work for them.


Well, I’ve talked about a whole lot of different things in this post and don’t really know what else there is to say. I hope that I didn’t offend anyone with my various mixed views on the whole thing. Let’s just make one thing clear: sexual harassment is wrong and never should be done.

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