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Feministing: NOW wrongly blasts Letterman
Submitted by anthony on Fri, 2009-10-09 19:56
Story here. Excerpt:
'But NOW, without having heard from any of the women with whom Letterman had sex, using this opportunity to address the issue is classless, and most importantly, shows it doesn't truly care about the individual experiences of women, but rather, will readily write them off to achieve an end goal.
In this instance, NOW attempts to speak for all women, represent all women, without them asking NOW to do so. In this instance, it is NOW making victims out of women who otherwise are empowered women who just so happened to have had sex with Letterman.
It seems NOW does not think women can make decision on their own as to with whom to have sex, nor does it trust women enough to think that they can have sex without having been coerced into it.
Time and again, it seems NOW is stuck in the past - unable to change and get past the fights it so honorably fought for in the early days of its existence. It seems to comprise of privileged women who claim to speak for all women, without actually checking in with women to understand their lived experiences or needs.'
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Comments
now succeeded
in turning the workplace into a not so nice place,
w/ some men afraid to even speak to women for fear of
lawsuits about something made up. it's all about her.
now succeeded into turning undeserving men into pariah
around their own families and children. false allegations of molestation,
abuse and rape are anything but rare, and nothing short of sinister.
imb their list of wrongs is extensive.
now has been spouting venom for a LOT of years, and women have been
regurgitating it back out to the detriment of everybody involved.
so suddenly women are starting to realize it? it's been hurting them too,
but hey, it's for the girls.
imho, besides needing someone to edit her work, she needs to speak to the
wrongs now has created and start talk (at least) of addressing them.
guess all those freebies/ privileges are hard to argue against if they
are coming a girls way.
Letterman
My take on it is not from the perspective that women felt that they had to have sex with him, but how the employees that WERE NOT having sex with him felt
It may have just been consensual relationships. I assume Dave puts in long hours so it is natural that he would find romance at work just like millions of other people do. But I am not sure if it was romantic relationships with a few employees over the course of many years or casual sex with many employees . That detail would influence my opinion as to how it may have effected the work environment.
The only 'problem' I see is that he has reportedly been with his girlfriend (now wife) for about 20 years. They had a child together about 5 years ago and they recently married, so he will have a lot of explaining to do to her. But that is between the two of them.
I am not sure if you can be having sex with some employees and also provide a fair and equitable work environment for all employees. But only the employees that work for Letterman can respond to that.
If the work environment was fair, I see no problem, but if it created a sense of inequality between the females that were having sex with him versus the female and males that were not, then there might be a problem.
How would a male employee feel if he felt qualified for a promotion, but it always went to Letterman's sex buddie instead.
So I have no idea why NOW would be involved. I would think that men would have more to complain about the situation.
Thing is, did any other employees even know?
Plus, how many employees could there be who work for Letterman's company? I'd wager not many. Most people working on that show would be CBS employees and mostly unionized. Worldwide Pants is a production company that CBS contracts for the Late Show. It probably does not have a very large number of employees.
NOW went off on this like it was a multi-billion dollar company that employed thousands of people. Not the case.
Plus, we do not know if it was common knowledge that David Letterman was sleeping with employees or how many employees he slept with. It was reported however that all of the affairs took place before he got married last March.
The only way it could have created a hostile work environment is if all the other employees had knowledge that Letterman was sleeping with staff members. And even then, only if the one's he was sleeping with were given special treatment above equally deserving others in the company, which is unlikely because it's not a big enough company to have many people competing for the same jobs within it.
We don't know how the story got out. Was it one woman who could not keep her mouth shut, or was it just common knowledge that a producer at another show thought he could capitalize on?
Bottom line, we know way to little about the situation to be able to pass judgment one way or the other
men had reason to complain
"How would a male employee feel if he felt qualified for a promotion, but it always went to Letterman's sex buddie instead. So I have no idea why NOW would be involved. I would think that men would have more to complain about the situation."
I agree, and it's interesting that a female spokesperson on CNN said exactly that, to the effect of "something I don't hear people talking about is how the male employees must feel knowing this is happening and having no way they can get the same favors this way."
It was a good point and I'm glad she said it. The media usually reactively only looks at how something affects females.