It was November 5, 1981. Karl had been at Harvard University for less than a year. She was an assistant professor of government, and Jorge Domínguez was her senior colleague. He had tenure; she didn’t. Domínguez would soon be president of the Latin American Studies Association; she studied Latin America. He sat on the editorial boards of prestigious journals like American Political Science Review and Social Science Quarterly. He was already a name in the field, while she was still establishing hers. He could be helpful to her — or not.Much more at the link.
For two years, according to Karl, Domínguez made numerous sexual advances, disregarding both verbal and written pleas to stop. It eventually led her to file a complaint, and Domínguez was found guilty by the university of “serious misconduct." Domínguez was removed from administrative responsibilities for three years and told that any future misconduct could trigger his dismissal. Karl considered his punishment a slap on the wrist. Meanwhile, she decided that she couldn’t remain at the same university as Domínguez considering what he'd done, and what she feared he might do....
Karl believes Harvard administrators played down her many complaints, attempting to mollify her rather than dealing with a difficult situation head-on. Harvard refused, as some universities still do, to publicly name the person responsible. They also let him stay, and promoted him, which sent a signal that Karl believes discouraged others from coming forward. If they hadn't done that, "then these women who experienced harassment in the 1990s and 2000s, it wouldn’t have happened, or they would have known that someone would be punished if they were harassed,” she says. “That’s the great enabling. It’s why the silence is so terrible.”
March 5, 2018
"She Left Harvard. He Got to Stay./Did the university’s handling of one professor’s sexual-harassment complaint keep other women from coming forward for decades?"
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports. Excerpt:
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Why is Leftwing Harvard such a cesspool of sexism and sexual discrimination?
Women are such wimps. Deal with it.
There are a thousand tradional ways to get a guy to stop.
Employ the mob would be the most amusing.
Meanwhile, she decided that she couldn’t remain at the same university as Domínguez considering what he'd done, and what she feared he might do....
Don’t spend too much time on students, he said, because teaching is not what Harvard rewards.
What does Harvard reward?
She Left Harvard. He Got to Stay.
She had the opportunity to stay, but made the choice to leave. He had the opportunity to stay, and made the choice to stay.
Ain't agency a bitch.
...disregarding both verbal and written pleas to stop.
How about a good, old-fashioned slap in the face? If standing, a knee to the groin also sends a subtle message.
Althouse reprises her role as civil rights crusader for the richest, fattest, safest and most politically powerful group to ever walk the earth, U.S. women.
Brings a tear to my eye.
Really, prof, how do you expect to be taken seriously over this shit? Don't you have something better to do?
Domínguez would soon be president of the Latin American Studies Association; she studied Latin America.
Maybe he was just trying to give her a taste of Latin American culture, up close and personal. Her cultural imperialism got in the way.
#MeTambien
The article certainly made it sound, to paraphrase Diane Keaton from The Godfather, a "Latino thing"?
How much did the latino / white instead of man /women stuff play into how Harvard treated the two. The result might have been the same, but this was the decade where all of the universities really started scrambling to hire and keep diverse faculty members. This is about the same year that Elizabeth Warren, after a not very distinguished matriculation at Rutgers, started her "long walk" up the hierarchy of law schools which led to HLS. Karl never had a chance.
Shockingly, after more than 30 years, the intellectual foundations of Latin American Political Social Science have still not recovered their former glory.
So it came down to the choice of him leaving or her leaving. She left.
First, men have had to deal with idiot bosses forever. Supervisors who very often gave you the choice of doing the dangerous work or leaving. Men dealt with it either by leaving or doing the work.
And these weren't issues of discomfort, but of real danger.
A good job is one where you have a good boss. She did the rational thing, she left. Maybe 'Harvard', the imaginary place of possibility and exciting intellectual challenge didn't in fact exist. It was populated, still is likely, by silly and flawed people.
The successful women I know have put together places they want to work at. They recognize their specific and personal demands from a workplace, then design and implement them.
The successful men I know have done exactly the same thing.
What do you do when your father or big brother isn't around to protect you? I know. Imagine a bigger and more powerful father/ big brother which will protect you even better.
Then wake up in the morning from your dreams and get on with making the life you want.
"How much did the latino / white instead of man /women stuff play into how Harvard treated the two."
I don't know, but I got to that article via a WaPo article reporting on it, and on the WaPo front page, the man is not named. I read the teaser out loud — "Prominent Harvard professor placed on leave following accusations of decades of sexual harassment" — and, before clicking said out loud there must be some reason they're not naming him and, clicking through and seeing it, said "Oh, it's because it's a Hispanic name."
So far 18 women have come forward with tales about this character going back to the 1970s. People don't change.
- As above, she chose to leave. Same subject, same dept., its not like each could have avoided the other, there would be constant bad blood (I doubt there would have been more "harassment") so thats an important point. Thats the result of making career-killing threats against colleagues.
- I suspect this was a result of a clash of cultures - hispanic guy acting hispanically, the usual "no means not yet", and the constant flirtation. You flirt with everyone, even your mother-in-law, or you are considered a cold fish.
This is one of those Spanish things that was a roaring success in Filipino culture. The Spanish language didnt make it, but flirting did. Over there they flirt as they breathe, it is automatic.
Persistence counts. It took me three years of wooing, at work, to get my wife to dump her then-boyfriend and switch allegiances. This is something you get in the Telenovelas btw.
On her side (the ex. Harvard lady), she seems very German and unwilling to put up with Latin ways. Which is odd considering her professional interests.
Well, that's not something you see everyday. The hypocrisy of the left.
A celebrated thing is chutzpah in wooing. The women pretty much expect it too, or one is indeed rated a cold fish, and moreover a coward.
You know, Instapundit might have coined a very durable question, one that is proving to be more prescient all the time: “Why are Leftist institutions such cesspits of racism and misogyny?”
I really should read at least one comment before beginning to type. Oh well. Great minds run in the same gutter or something.
You flirt with everyone, even your mother-in-law, or you are considered a cold fish.
Maybe the Spanish influence is why flirting is part of Southern U.S. culture. On the other hand, we generally recognize that shoving your hand down the back of someone's pants while hugging them means you have crossed over from flirting to being a jerk.
Dominguez was one of the first instances in which a Harvard professor was publicly reported for sexual harassment and punished. Interestingly, it was a subsequent complaint from a student (not Karl's complaint) that seemed to make the difference. Here is a 1983 article in The Crimson about it.
What we have with #metoo may be a recalibration of certain social norms regarding behaviors that may have traditionally been considered OK (or even encouraged) in hispanic cultures. Although to be fair, sinisterly intoning something like "This would be a nice place for a rape” may be out of bounds even in that culture. Who knows? Trump's presidency has changed reality in so many unexpected and unpredictable ways. Only time will tell where all this is going.
Wow, after RTFA I would like to know how many formal complaints are on file. Even if only a few (hard to tell), this sounds an awfully lot like a #weallknew/#theyallnew/#everyonenew situation. I have mixed feelings about Harvard (it gave Harvey W a civil rights award just a few years ago!), but this is pretty shocking.
As for professor Dominguez, this stuff is 30 years old, and he was already a big cheese then. Getting on in years, and warming a seat some others desperately want. So I suspect all this is a way to put the old boy out to pasture.
There may also be an ideological angle here, the usual "long march" of the ever more radical into top positions.
No idea whether his professional work was ever of any merit, or any use; considering the subject probably not. And the replacement almost certainly isn't going to be an improvement.
BTW, I read this one (thanks nonapod) https://www.chronicle.com/article/More-Women-Come-Forward-to/242737, which I think is the more shocking of the two articles being discussed in these comments. Only 18 in a couple of days? I think that is about as many as HW had in first 48 hours. Watch the # increase as H investigates (it should investigate itself and more people than just this douche bag should be be fired, but I'm not holding my breath).
He had tenure; she didn’t. [He] would soon be president of the Latin American Studies Association; she studied Latin America. He sat on the editorial boards of prestigious journals like American Political Science Review and Social Science Quarterly. He was already a name in the field, while she was still establishing hers.
The first sentence says it all. We might append the parenthetical remark “(and might never achieve tenure)” onto the sentence. Add the fact that he was an established star on the field, adding luster to Harvard’s already glowing reputation, while she was a newbie who might never amount to very much. How could there ever be any question which person they would favor in a “he said - she said” scenario?
And yet ... He was told that “any future misconduct could trigger his dismissal.” So why wouldn’t she expect him to be a perfect gentleman around her for the rest of their respective careers at Harvard?
I suspect that she really left because without a senior person mentoring her, her academic career was going to go nowhere. And perhaps she made the conscious assessment that she wasn’t going to cut it at Harvard. Tenure is not automatic, nor should it be. In some places the ratio of assistant professors granted tenure to those denied could be as bad as 1:5. I suspect it’s gotten worse since that’s number came from the late 1970s.
My teacher in some very early grade said that in Spanish culture it is assumed that men and women have intercourse in any unchaperoned meeting.
Harvard, like most colleges and universities. is strong on moral outrage and weak on moral behavior. The bulk of the faculty is focused on their own little world and have no idea what the "outside" world might demand; the bulk of the administration is composed of spineless people who did not have the courage to go forth into the competitive real world where their lack of ability or drive might be criticized. Generally speaking those on the Boards of Trustees seem to lose whatever real world savvy they have as soon as they return to the ivy covered halls of their alma mater. It has probably been ever thus, but has been aggravated as the alumni suffering the mental defects learned in the 60's and 70's have gained an increased influence.
Harvard has still not faced up to the findings that 75% of "unwanted sexual touching" has taken place in Harvard administered spaces. It has hidden that failure behind a wall of academic bullshit and by attacking students' freedom of association within the private sphere of its final clubs. I have asked the Dean of the College about what steps were being taken about the real problems and got nothing but obfuscation.
Though I question Karl's strength of character I understand the pressure she was under. I think that it is wrong to say that awareness of sexual harassment issues was limited in the 1980s. Certainly in the corporate world at that time everyone then was very aware of the issue.
If you're in a specialty and you go to study in a prominent place where there is one person in that specialty, you are spending a tremendous amount of money and effort to get something that is held out to you as having a very specific value. If that one person is aggressively sexually harassing you, you are monumentally ripped off in that deal. It's a *massive fraud* by Harvard, and Harvard should be massively punished for what it did. If it did that.
In answer to Mike's comment regarding tenure: the absolute best teacher I had at Harvard Business School was denied tenure, because he wanted to teach, not write books. I am sure that Ann could give us an eyeopening view of the politics of tenure.
I wonder how many women fell for his lines.
He can now retire and enjoy his pension. Probably has a home on the Cape somewhere.
Try to get your mind around all the careers that have been stunted because universities have failed to take this problem seriously and coddled their professors over many decades.
I understand the resistance many of you feel about looking at the problem, but maybe shift your thinking a bit and imagine how you would have been complicit protecting these professors if you were in the position of these administrators.
Don't be so afraid to think about the evidence. The reflexiveness of some of the comments here is sad. Don't you want to think that you wouldn't be part of the problem? Imagine if you sent your brilliant daughter to Harvard and this happened to her.
"I wonder how many women fell for his lines."
Or understood them but steeled themselves and powered through the obstacles in the real world they were ambitious about succeeding in and still carry the emotional baggage of what they had to do to win.
And I'm sure some of the women actually fell for him and even loved him. That's the heaviest baggage of all. You don't get far lugging that around all your life.
Women can't stay interested in what interests them.
What really interests them is being a victim, it seems. Their stereotype swallows them up.
Guys manage in spite of headwinds and sandbagging simply by actually being interested in something they continue at.
What looks like luck is persistence.
We have here a sexual difference.
Latin American (or Latin, full stop) political culture is tremendously sexual. It makes much less sense if it is regarded impersonally and antiseptically. The analyst will simply be wrong.
Its like studying D'Annunzio, Mussolini, Berlusconi without considering sex. It doesn't work. These guys USED sex, their reputations, gossip, and personal magnetism as part of their power plays.
Similarly to Castro (why Fidel and not Raul, for instance) or Chavez, or Peron.
The subject she was studying requires a good dose of putting up with Latin Americans in their natural environment, behaving as comes naturally. Like dealing with leeches in New Guinea.
"Try to get your mind around all the careers that have been stunted because universities have failed to take this problem seriously and coddled their professors over many decades."
Try to get your mind around how many hetero Christian white men have been blacklisted out of academia in the past 50 years, including your law school.
Well, who gives a shit about that?
Okay, this happened in 1981. I believe that was roughly 37 years ago. It seems the school did punish Dominguez, and not trivially, just not as much as this woman felt warranted. So, she left of her own volition and went on to Stanford and had a great career.
Admittedly, I could be behind the times on these matters, but exactly
what about this whole affair makes it newsworthy after four decades? How long does one have to wallow in self pity, and would any punishment short of Dominguez's castration have satisfied this woman?
Ann Althouse said...
Imagine if you sent your brilliant daughter to Harvard and this happened to her.
I have a brilliant daughter. I couldn't imagine sending her anywhere.
There is a great deal more to life than some university career, that is simply truth. Life-life includes all the fundamentals of human behavior.
Really, I'm trying to be Christian in my response to this crap...
But, it's hard to give a fuck.
Women like Althouse are so greedy, so ruthlessly self-interested and so relentlessly determined to destroy normal heterosexual behavior and institutions and religion, so determined to faggotize men and boys that...
Well, I don't know what the hell to do with them. I don't work any more, so I don't have to put up with them on a day to day level. If I were to have enemies and go on a crusade to destroy them, Althouse would be a target. I'm no longer interested in crusades.
I'm retired. Retired from saving the world, too. I'm just trying to protect my grandchildren from Althouse's and her Weird Sisters' depredations and attacks. They are evil enemies.
Okay, this happened in 1981. I believe that was roughly 37 years ago.
If you read more of the articles, you'll see that he continued the behavior for most of the intervening 37 years -- and the woman who left is noting that if Harvard had taken this seriously way back when -- or even just 5 years ago, and the complaints continued -- it would not be a problem now.
I agree that if this happened just once, 37 years ago, it wouldn't be worth commenting. But the guy who stayed at Harvard continued to inflict himself on women.
Althouse wrote: Imagine if you sent your brilliant daughter to Harvard and this happened to her.
Imagine sending your daughter to a college where this happened.
Imagine getting a frantic text message from her shortly after it happened but there was a news black out regarding the identity of the suspect. The heroics of the boyfriend also didn't come out for days -- nor did the Keystone Kop antics.
MadMan, Harvard told him "future misconduct could trigger his dismissal."
You aren't suggesting Harvard LIED, are you? I mean, why ever would they do that?
Oh. Lawyers. "Could" trigger...
Uh huh.
Imagine if you sent your brilliant daughter to Harvard and this happened to her.
I couldn't imagine sending a daughter to any college or university today given that 20% of women who attend college will be raped.
Is there a good reason why Harvard accommodated this man so many years after the event?
Anyone?
Political analysis that requires understanding sexual value systems -
An example - Ferdinand Marcos. He was a bit of a dweeb, a nerd. A law-school prodigy, a great insider, a maker of corrupt deals par excellance. A great ability to maneuver himself out of scandals. Early on, as a youth, representing himself on a murder charge before the Supreme Court.
Case 1 - But his career really took off when he married Imelda, who was considered a great beauty in her day. This matters. Suddenly Ferdinand was significant. If he could get that girl, there must be something to him. And, moreover, a great number of women were suddenly attracted to him. E
Imagine that in US politics - does not work. Same thing happened to Peron, to Menem, etc.
Case 2 - Dovie Beams. Beautiful American adventuress and some say CIA agent got into Ferdinands pants, the whole thing being audio recorded, publicly played before the press in 1970, and made much of by the rather US-centric bourgeois opposition. But the people, the tao, took it differently. The Apo was macho, he scored a beautiful white woman.
You could not, properly, understand such politics without understanding the people, and to do that requires real experience, not just antiseptic academicism.
And that experience can be upsetting, there are genuine and profound cultural differences. Foreigners are foreign.
Ann, I know you're only quoting, but "disregarding both verbal and written pleas to stop" should be flagged as Bad English.
And concerning recent events (yesterday), this also explains why Berlusconi still has a political career.
@Gahrie
I couldn't imagine sending a daughter to any college or university today given that 20% of women who attend college will be raped.
Except that the same statistic for women who do not attend college is 30%.
"If you read more of the articles.."
I read the whole article. The other instances listed, even if true, had absolutely nothing to do with this woman. She is still obsessed with Dominguez, which is probably why Harvard partially discounted her complaints 37 years ago.
@MadisonMan
If you read more of the articles, you'll see that he continued the behavior for most of the intervening 37 years -- and the woman who left is noting that if Harvard had taken this seriously way back when -- or even just 5 years ago, and the complaints continued -- it would not be a problem now.
Except that he was publicly reported and punished (mildly) as early as 1983 (See the article I linked above). So, it's not as if they were not only aware of the problem, but aware that it was a problem that needed some kind of action.
In contrast, when Charlie Hennekens was accused by multiple women in 1999, he got the heave ho right away. Even then, people complained that it was unfair to him because some (but not all) of the women reported anonymously.
Another note that it isn't just sexual harassment that Universities indemnify professors against. All sorts of misconduct goes unpunished for the senior faculty, and any junior faculty who dares report it faces ruin as the administration circles the wagons around the perp to protect the reputation of the University and avoid a lawsuit.
SPOILER: I've just watched 17 hours of "The Fall", with Gillian Anderson as a London Detective Super. in N Ireland. She plucks, fucks, and hires as subordinates 2 good-looking local detectives. She doesn't hide it from the other cops.
Both cops get shot, one dead, other career likely ended. At least someone gets punished.
She'd also fucked the married boss who'd brought her over. He falls off the wagon and later retires.
Try to get your mind around all the careers that have been stunted because universities have failed to take this problem seriously and coddled their professors over many decades.
I get where you're trying to drag us, Althouse. And perhaps there's some universe where women always tell the truth. But in the universe where I live women lie about sexual harassment. They really do. I would not destroy any man's career over one woman's "he said - she said" dispute. If there's some corroborating evidence, that's different story. But if you want to know why women are not taken at their unsupported word, ask yourself how many females of our species understand words like "honor," "integrity," "honesty," and "truth." If you can treat that problem, then the other can be resolved.
Jordan Peterson told us about the implicit threat of violence between males that doesn't carry to male-female. Big Mike brings up what does pertain.
Triangle Man... about that 30% (and the 20% for college students for that matter)... the DEFINITION used to reach the %:
Definitions of rape and sexual assault. The NCVS, NISVS, and CSA target different types of events. The NCVS definition is shaped from a criminal justice perspective and includes threatened, attempted, and completed
rape and sexual assault against males and females (see Methodology). The NISVS uses a broader definition of sexual violence, which specifically mentions incidents
in which the victim was unable to provide consent due
to drug or alcohol use; forced to penetrate another person; or coerced to engage in sexual contact (including nonphysical pressure to engage in sex) unwanted sexual contact (including forcible kissing, fondling, or grabbing); and noncontact unwanted sexual experiences that do not involve physical contact.4 The CSA definition of rape and sexual assault includes unwanted sexual contact due to force and due to incapacitation, but excludes unwanted sexual contact due to verbal or emotional coercion.
Don't be so afraid to think about the evidence. The reflexiveness of some of the comments here is sad. Don't you want to think that you wouldn't be part of the problem? Imagine if you sent your brilliant daughter to Harvard and this happened to her.
The point is that people, both men and women, have to deal with all sorts of crap on the job and at school. Overt discrimination against white males, as someone mentioned above, is just one example. Who hasn't had to deal with a boss who's an a-hole? No one's saying it's an ok thing, but it's not unique or special.
I'm guessing this guy knew he had an extra layer of protection being Hispanic. Such people are bad for the company or university, since they end up driving away better people in favor of inferiors. But the people they mistreat, like this lady, if they're good, can just move. She ends up at Stanford, hardly the end of the world.
Althouse: "I understand the resistance many of you feel about looking at the problem. ... Don't you want to think that you wouldn't be part of the problem?"
I read little evidence that you understand the nature of the problem. People who believe they are on the side of good, right, and true often use that as an excuse to do the truly awful things they want to do. We see it in Hollywood. We see it in academia. It is endemic to the human condition but allowed to coalesce and escape punishment in some quarters more than others.
An acknowledgement that we are flawed (and in particular the Judeo-Christian belief that we suffer Original Sin) leads one to know that we are capable of great and terrible things. And that grounding provides an opportunity to reject doing the terrible things for fear of punishment, an effort to be more Godly, or a general sense of doing right for rights sake.
It is also this recognition that pushes people to believe power should not be wielded over us. Many people reject an overly powerful, centralized, authoritarian (strongman or technocratic) government because we recognize our own flaws and fight diligently (always failing) to do better than our basest instincts.
You cannot create systems that consolidate power without exacerbating the terrible uses of that power to which we might all succumb, if not checked.
Start arguing for greater decentralization of power and I'll start to believe you have a concept of what makes these issues systemic.
I have to admit, the last couple of years I have been ixnay on the ugginghay that seems to be de rigueur in the work place these days. I'm at a university research facility, in which 90% of my colleagues are female (mostly young). I'm not sure how many might welcome it (or not), although there are only 2-3 that I've worked closely enough with to even think of doing it (although I briefly did).
But not anymore.
Prof. Dominguez is a first class jerk, a manipulator and a liar. And Harvard did its very best to protect him (and its self) from any serious consequence. The school's concern was with institutional projection rather than the welfare of a student. Given the times and the circumstances, it seems to me that Ms. Karl conducted herself with admirable integrity and skill. Out of it all, she managed to salvage a very good career. ("In the end, Karl accepted an offer from Stanford University, earned tenure, and finished that book.") Good for her.
One of the best measures of the value and success of an institution is accountability. Universities and governments seem to be particularly adept at deflecting accountability, either for themselves or for favored and entrenched individuals within the institutions. Lack of accountability for sexual harassment throws a particularly strong light on this behavior, but the problem lies deep in the structures of these institutions.
the Judeo-Christian belief that we suffer Original Sin
We wanted franchise, we got franchise, and the attendant responsibility of reconciliation. Pro-Choice is a cop-out, avoidance, normalizing wicked solutions, to albeit hard problems.
To put it more succinctly, I'm guessing half the people on the planet have an "I left; he stayed" story, most having nothing to do with sex. I know I have one, and the "he" was just a back-stabbing supervisor who made work life miserable. He stayed, I left.
Ann Althouse said, "If you're in a specialty and you go to study in a prominent place where there is one person in that specialty..."
Ann Althouse said, "Try to get your mind around all the careers that have been stunted..."
Okay. I'm sold on the idea that this is a problem.
It seems to me that if you're dependent on one person in a situation, and that person is abusive, then everyone is potentially screwed with no easy way to avoid it. Suppose Karl had not left. If she fails to get tenure, is it because he retaliated against her or because she really wasn't good enough? If Harvard had been harder on Dominguez, do we get the same result? This begins to put Harvard in a very delicate position.
I don't recall the state of workplace harassment law in 1981, but it's also possible Harvard assessed its "Latino vs woman problem" and went the safer route. Maybe too bad for Larry Summers that he wasn't Larry Veranos.
rhhardin said, "There are a thousand tradional ways to get a guy to stop. Employ the mob would be the most amusing."
A bit extreme if appealing, and it doesn't solve the woman's career problem. Maybe the law should permit, with probable cause, women to get wired to provide better evidence. Just thinking aloud here.
rhhardin said, "My teacher in some very early grade said that in Spanish culture it is assumed that men and women have intercourse in any unchaperoned meeting." Then perhaps in all> workplace circumstances where a woman is dependent on a powerful man, all interactions should be chaperoned. By a second woman.
This is such a frustrating problem to remedy.
My daughter got years of Tae Kwon Do. Anyone expecting her to be the one suffering from sexual harassment in the workplace has a painful surprise coming right quick. Amazing how well a polite "No" can work, if followed up with groin injuries to the offending party. What's he gonna do, limp to HR and explain why he can't work the rest of the afternoon?
"The reflexiveness of some of the comments here is sad. Don't you want to think that you wouldn't be part of the problem? "
I expect you would get the same "reflexiveness" in the opposite direction if the commentariat here were mostly liberals. Conservatives are more about personal responsibility and self-defense, while liberals are about victim-hood, and the group exacting punishment through bureaucracy, all based on identity.
You present a scenario, and each group naturally jumps to the position they fight for every day. The conservatives here are arguing with YOU, becuase you represent the other side of that. You want them to just surrender? They understand what you are saying, and even accept that your point is often the case, but they are presenting the counter. I thought you retired from the echo chamber.
Mary Beth: Maybe the Spanish influence is why flirting is part of Southern U.S. culture.
Though they may share some deep roots in the European chivalric traditions, old school Southern gallantry
seems to me a very different creature from its Latin analogue. As a lover of the former I can't say that the latter is really my cup of tea, but à chacun son goût.
I have understood how either can be subject to serious cultural misunderstanding, however, since my first youthful forays into Yankeeland. In the South I grew up in everybody flirted with everyone else - it was simply good manners, the gallant homage paid to the opposite sex by a member of one sex to any representative of the other. What to a Southerner was merely that pleasant ritual gallantry that added to the interest and enjoyment of daily life, was taken as a come-on by non-Southerners. After a couple of alarming responses in the non-South, I learned to dial it down to 0. Still, by my lights, nothing beats an old-school Southern gentlemen when it comes to the pleasures of civilized flirting.
On the other hand, we generally recognize that shoving your hand down the back of someone's pants while hugging them means you have crossed over from flirting to being a jerk.
Funny how those subtle little things make all the difference, no?
rh: My teacher in some very early grade said that in Spanish culture it is assumed that men and women have intercourse in any unchaperoned meeting.
"Between a male saint and a female saint, a wall of stone", is the way it was told to me.
AA: Try to get your mind around all the careers that have been stunted because universities have failed to take this problem seriously and coddled their professors over many decades.
I understand the resistance many of you feel about looking at the problem, but maybe shift your thinking a bit and imagine how you would have been complicit protecting these professors if you were in the position of these administrators.
Don't be so afraid to think about the evidence. The reflexiveness of some of the comments here is sad.
You want commenters to frame the issue in such a way that they think about it the way you think about it - this is a problem of women having their careers blighted by adverse situations that are unique to being female, or at least uniquely sexual in nature.
But as others above have pointed out, all the things that happened to Karl, or could happen to someone who is sexually harassed by a jerk superior (career damage, financial loss), also happen to people who are non-sexually harassed by a jerk superior. In these situations, most employees do not have any legal or social recourse against the quotidian assholery of all-too-human superiors and CYA management, either.
As bagoh points out above "[t]hey understand what you are saying, and even accept that your point is often the case, but they are presenting the counter." Perhaps those providing the counter are not the ones being narrow and knee-jerk? It's up to you to present a persuasive case that no, one thing is not like the other, there is a unique (and legally/socially remediable) problem here encountered by women trying to make their way in careers and institutions. You haven't done so.
Dominguez has at least one interesting paper btw -
"The Batista Regime in Cuba" - 1998
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~jidoming/images/jid_batista.PDF
Its a survey, but very informative. Much of this is in summarized form in Hugh Thomas, but this paper is very readable, as academic productions go. Straightforward, little jargon (other than "sultanization" which may have been fashionable in that field 20 years ago). If you want to debate people re Cuba, this is an alternative to citing Hugh Thomas.
Much of this discussion reminds me of two factors. First, PROXEMICS, an idea put forward by the anthropologist Edward T Hall about cultural maps of social distancing: what is a comfortable versus a threatening distance. Some cultures, as found in Latin America, demand close proximity between speakers, while others, like the USA, want MORE distance between speakers. In his book, The Hidden Dimension, he describes at length how a Latino can back an US Gringo around a room and into a corner in the course of a normal (state department) type mixer. I believe he called it the Latin American Waltz. He was hired by the State Department to train foreign service functionaries to deal with the cultural dimensions of non-verbal interactions.
Much of this problem sounds like a strong dose of this; and yes, in gradual school, one does meet people who specialize in area studies and have no idea of the deeper cultural dimensions of their field other than what intellectuals write.
Second, I must concur with much of the rank and file who cry "foul" loudly on our beloved Professor. This is NOT a sexual problem although the power balancing of crying such is immediate, especially now that due process has been successfully shit canned from American Universities. Getting hit upon for a fuck in the department storeroom, anal or vaginal, or a demand for a blow job (male or female blower) is part of the landscape of institutions of higher learning since the Greeks invented Platonic Love (total bullshit).
English Dons at the big schools were not called Leaping Lords for nothing. Boys are not targets to senior men's penises? Are you mad? Have you talked with the victims of parish priests or yeshiva teachers???
Come on. Come on. Their way or the highway. And yes, for those of us who said no, whether from a female or male supervisor, we had our careers "blunted" and had to go elsewhere or stayed for spite.
I understand the Sisterhood is Powerful; but, you truly cannot be serious to suggest this problem is ONLY men hitting on women? For real?
The real source of gradual school failure is backstabbing. Sexual liaisons followed by meticulous knife stabbings are the stuff of mega drama. In my department, women would sleep with the best statisticians and programmers (or young professors), gain visibility and then dump on their partners (usually it was not enough to part; a complete humiliation leading to their exile was required).
As for protecting one of their own, is this really surprising? Harvard is as much of a grant whore as anyone. Who did this guy and what did he bring to Harvard's backrooms?
Come on; this is more snow flake drivel; more the humorous since the young prof apparently did not REALLY know her territory.
Looking at his Harvard CV, he got his BA in 1967, so I figure that makes him about 72 now. Retirement time.
rhh (and buwaya),
The way the chaparone thing worked worked itself out, at least in rural, roadless (i.e. really rural) Chiapas when I was there, was that almost anyone could be a chaperone: the main requirement was you needed to be old enough to talk fluently. So, Mama could go across the river to the shop and take little Juan or Juanita as her "chaperone", as long as the child was old enough to have said, "Whoa--I saw Mama kissing Sr. Alvarez when we are at the shop today!!!"
Angel-Dyne,
Exactly! Women are supposed to be attractive; men are supposed to be attracted... but other than in very limited circumstances you're not expected to act on that. (And in that milieu, "talk" and "action" are two distinct things.)
Daniel Jackson,
Interestingly, it's not just Latinos who have a closer social conversation distance than Americans... so do Germans of all people! A German colleague once backed my wife down a 60' long veranda in the course of a ten minute conversation.
buwaya,
An undergraduate degree in 1967 probably means 80 years old, or a bit more.
A German colleague once backed my wife down a 60' long veranda in the course of a ten minute conversation.
That's not social closeness, that's anschluss. Lebensraum and all that.
Birkel,
My calc says born in 1945-46, BA grad at 21-22, current age 72-73
BA's were four years back then too, no? And students started at @17-19.
And to confirm, other Bio data says he was born in Cuba 1945.
During a lifetime in Silicon Valley, I've had the pleasure of explaining Japanese men and Brazilian women, among others, to my less-experienced colleagues. I even developed a little curriculum over time. Perhaps a retirement business opportunity?
There are a lot of bitter people who could have made it, but did not make it in X, where X can be academics, business, love, etc. "I coulda beena CONTENDA!"
If only they had studied PROXEMICS and understood DANCING!
James K.,
LOL! Except Helga in this case wanted less room, not more.
buwaya:
I sit here, corrected.
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