Sexual Harassment Allegations: Where Are We Heading?
By Dr Basheer Ahmed Khan
Garden Grove, CA
There is a saying in Persian: NakhleKufr, Kufr Na Ba-Shood. Meaning to repeat the blasphemy should not be considered an act of blasphemy. But still I will not repeat all the allegations going around these days in the 24/7 news media for fear of over saturating the minds of people which are already saturated by the echoes of the media rant on the subject. I will focus on the question of where we are heading. Will the deluge of allegations shut the door of harassment of women once and for all or will it be accepted as a social norm?
These allegations are not something new, but only a public acknowledgement of the filth that we all knew was under the carpet of our societies. We expose this dirt every now and then only to assess the moral barometer of our society. We have been doing this ever since the day when the physical beauty of Adam and Eve was revealed to them when Satan lured them to eat from the forbidden tree. Caine committed the murder of Able because he wanted to marry the beautiful girl who was the legal right of Able because of the sequence of their birth.
Even David and Solomon (PBUT) were not spared such allegations. Joseph (PBUH) who became the treasury secretary of the Pharaoh of Egypt was also not spared the allegation of improper sexual behavior by the Pharaoh’s wife. The wife of Muhammad SA was also a victim of such an allegation. I do not mean to blaspheme these noble prophets of God or to lighten the crimes of those against whom these allegations are alleged, but I only want to trace the history of such allegations.
Women being considered the weaker sex were not just victims of an assault but also punished for it. Law being blind, the seeing people used it and the loop holes in it not only to wash their hands off their crime but to put the blame on the victims. Because of this fear, women were silently suffering this fate. Now that liberal societies have empowered women and the mass media and the social media has gained the power to promote any value, both are now testing to see their efficacy in bringing about the desired change in social behavior.
When similar allegations were made about clergy, many a “place of worship” went bankrupt. We need to wait a little longer to know if the practice of abuse has stopped in the “places of worship” after this moral chastisement and financial pinch. I can assure you that it will not take a millennium to know that because of the activism of media, which was absent in the last millennium, to bring the problem to focus and to fore.
A victim who was allegedly assaulted by a famous film personality appearing before a large gathering of women said, and I am paraphrasing it: We should all take courage from each other and come out fearlessly about what we have endured so far silently. I only shudder to imagine who all will be exposed and humbled in this battle of sexes. My curiosity is only to know if this deluge of allegations is only to humble some people for economic and political gains or to really end the suffering of women once and for all.
When President Clinton underwent the impeachment trial two decades ago I was expecting the problem to be over. To my dismay, I found that the incidence of disappearance of girls, including some popular models, and their murders actually increased keeping the law enforcement machinery and the media busy while their focus was needed on other important issues. As these crimes against women were going on relentlessly at every place, the talk shows on the TV and radio were busy discussing the matter of gender relations, family matters, and sexuality to enlighten even the half men and the half women about these matters which they would anyhow know when it was time for them to know.
Programs about dating and mushrooming of dating sites seem to have given more opportunity for exploiters than providing an avenue to the seekers of life long partners through these programs and these sites. The virtual reality sites have emboldened even the faint hearts to pursue their quest for fair ladies. The cyclical boom and bust of economies is creating multitudes of unemployed men and women in every society. Ending of taboo on drink and drug gives them free access to the inebriants which divert their attention from real problems. Sex has become the prime focus of these people and of media and society. Free access to guns gives the aggressive and influential people unfettered opportunity to silence the victims of their lust and libido. The disappointed people in the race who can’t maintain silence either commit suicide or kill their tormentor. And those who have courage for neither are killed by the fear of society, a slow and painful death.
We think that one of the advantages of liberalism is that we have come out of the taboo of the fear of society and now we are free to do what we want to do with our bodies out of our own free will. The (in)famous film maker Michael Moore in one of his interview had said, and I am paraphrasing it: Now the empowered women need nothing from men except their sperm. What we forget is that as long as this interdependency between men and women is there, however loose and weak it may be, it needs honesty and sincerity. Without developing this honesty and sincerity and without linking morality to legality, and without linking freedoms to restraints we will fall from one low to another and all the hope of reforming and stabilizing our societies will fail.
I had read the novel Peyton Place in the seventies and I was fortunate to see the movie Peyton Place and Return to Peyton Place recently. This novel, which was written in the context of life of a small town in America, is applicable now to the whole world which has become a global village. The moral of the story is that to save a person from ignominy of unwise actions in the process of experimenting with freedoms in a society is to have a doctor like Dr Sawyer who can risk his license to save the honor of his patient; A journalist like Alison who can present a mirror to the town to see its face taking blame from the entire town including her own mother for it; a town which can discuss both sides of the problem at its Town Hall and has the moral grit to come to grips with its own failing; academics who can raise uncomfortable issues not for partisan discourse but to establish decency and decorum to society; and above all, there is a need of such men and women who are willing to learn from their mistakes and take the victims of their acts of omissions and commissions not for another ride but for real partnership.
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