Why won't Kirsten Gillibrand name the men she says harassed her?

She writes in her book that a male labor leader said "You're too fat to be elected statewide" and a male colleague said she was getting "porky," another said she's "even pretty when [she's] fat," and yet another made physical contact and said he liked "chubby" girls. But she won't name names. Let's analyze the possible reasons.

1. She wants to focus attention on the general problem of "how women are treated in the workplace... undervaluing women... and chronically paying them less and treating them poorly and not valuing them." This is the answer she gives, and as a politician, it makes sense to think that she has her issues and she wants issues seen as issues, so individual incidents are supposed to work as examples of the sort of thing that's happening. Specific details would distract us from the big problem and would enable those who oppose her solutions to that problem to find ways to distinguish what happened to her from what she's presenting as the big problem to be solved with the legislation that she, as a politician, would like to promote.

2. She wants to present herself in a good light, so she's filtered the story so that people see her as an ordinary woman who struggled with her weight and got harassed about it, rather than as an extraordinary woman who received an appointment to her seat in the Senate in part because she was a woman — because she was replacing a woman, Hillary Clinton — and because she had excellent feminine attractiveness. Did any male even have a chance? Which fatter, homelier women did she perhaps beat out? But, no, men commented on her post-pregnancy weight gain and that was good material to use to help us relate to her and to think that she understands us and our problems.

3. If she named the men, she'd have to tell the whole story, and we'd have to see things from their perspective too. The nameless men were mean to her, but if she named them, she might seem mean. Was she unfair? What was the actual context? Maybe it was a friendly, chummy environment where everyone teases everyone else and it was part of being considered one of the guys. Maybe she had drawn attention to her weight gain and expressed worry about it and they were mirroring her remarks supportively or just saying they like her however she looks. Fat is good too! As for the "too fat to be elected statewide," she got the Senate seat by appointment, and she had to be planning for the election, thinking of things she could do, and the subject of doing what she could to improve her appearance would have come up, as it does for all candidates, male and female. We openly talk about whether Chris Christie is too fat to get elected President. Maybe she was getting equal treatment. If we knew the details, we could probe into this, and any dishonesty in her presentation of the incidents could hurt her now.

4. She wants to protect the men she hasn't named. They're her political allies, perhaps quite well-known characters. I think we can assume that they are all Democrats, since we haven't heard otherwise and she probably would have taken the opportunity to ding Republicans, and since Republicans would be more likely to maintain formal politeness with her and not to assume that they could take liberties.

5. Maybe it didn't happen. There are no names named because there are no names to name.

Pick all that you think are probably true.

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