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If longtime New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams ruled the world, you wouldn't whine and cry because your boss told you that your tits look great while handing back a report to you. And you wouldn't sue if your dermatologist grabbed your vagina instead of botoxing your face. You might not like it, you might even remember their names, as Cindy Adams does, but you'd ... (wait for it) ... deal with it.
Because that's the fantastic advice Cindy Adams gives in response to sexual harassment. Apparently, all sexual harassment. Women should squelch whatever feelings of discomfort or anxiety or frustration or anger or embarrassment they feel and just deal. Since, as she says, that's what we did when we were younger. She insinuates that enforcing anti-harassment laws is something only the older ladies do:
She's in her 40s. Hey, we've all been there. Those things happened to every one us in our earlier days. But that was before the world became so litigious. We've each endured some too tight hug or some slob whose hand wandered where it shouldn't. Deal with it. That's what we did in our younger, prettier days.
Thankfully, the general public's response was mostly a collective gasp at her advice. Celebitchy described her column as an "insane rant" and said,
This is an antiquated and dangerous denial of something that is illegal, invasive and has damaging life-altering effects on little girls and women. That sentence was really long winded but I’m so pissed off by this that I’m having trouble getting my damn point across.
It is incredibly frustrating, not just because it comes out of the mind of a fellow woman, but because her words not only exited her typing fingers but passed through a series of editors on the way to print. Some will point out that her column is simply link bait, aimed to be extreme in order to drive newspaper sales and traffic to the site but regardless, they are words that need to be discussed lest anyone read her bat-shit insane advice and take it to heart.
Her advice apparently applies to both sexual harassment and sexual abuse, as she mixes the two crimes within her examples. This dangerous lumping together of two separate crimes (and being dismissive of both) is the subject of the Huffington Post's take on the column. Their article on Cindy Adams contains a great quote from the Women's Media Center which points out,
The author is blurring the lines between sexual harassment and sexual assault, when in fact one often leads to the other...We should be focusing on the empowerment of women through programs like HollabackNYC which encourages women to identify their assailants, rather than regressing to a "just deal with it" attitude that disrespects and undermines the strides we have made in recent decades.
On the other side, supporting Adams' column is Megyn Kelly on Fox News (er...though she claims she's only playing devil's advocate on the video), who, despite an expert on her program explaining to her several times why women should sue and call the police when they are a victim of sexual assault, Kelly questions whether women reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally need to do something about it.
The best way to combat the misinformation in Cindy Adams' column is not to whine about her, but to reeducate anyone who happens upon it. All women should educate themselves on the definitions of sexual harassment and sexual assault. There are excellent fact sheets on the Web that cover both crimes. The Department of Transportation covers what to do if you are being sexually harassed, including what counts as sexual harassment and advice on filing a report. The CDC has a fact sheet on sexual assault and the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence (NAESV) has a fact sheet as well.
Melissa writes Stirrup Queens and Lost and Found. Her book is Navigating the Land of If.
