HARVEY WEINSTEIN, BRAVE WOMEN, AND HYPOCRISY

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

I’ve been obsessed with the fall of Harvey Weinstein these past few weeks.  I was about five feet away from Mr. Weinstein up in Sun Valley a few years ago.  He is just as hairy and creepy looking in person as his pictures indicate and I can’t imagine the horror of being in his radar.  As a former HR executive for a major corporation, and two small companies before that, I’ve seen and heard more than most in terms of sexual harassment.  The only thing Mr. Weinstein got right is that harassment in the workplace was common in the 70’s and 80’s.  For those of us who began our careers in that era we know that leering glances, off-color remarks and outright propositions happened all the time.  A successful career not only required skill in the selected profession but also being able to fend off the inevitable advances.  To paraphrase Winston Churchill, our greatest skill was being able to tell the perpetrator to go to hell in such a way that he’d enjoy the trip.  We never reported such events.  Frankly, I don’t think anyone would have cared back then.  I once had the head of HR asked me to “walk on the beach” with him after an offsite dinner.  I think his definition of walking on the beach didn’t include much walking.  He got increasingly angry with each rebuff.  He finally gave up but from that point on his formerly praising attitude toward my work turned to one of criticism.  I reported the incident to the head of personnel relations, but she felt her hands were tied.   After all, going over his head to the President of the company seemed like a far reach in the 1980’s.  I left the company shortly after that.

So I’ve read with interest the remarks some have made castigating the women Mr. Weinstein harassed for not stepping up right after he groped, raped or pleaded with them to watch him shower.  I have an issue with Ashley Judd (more on that later) but I think she got it right when asked to reflect on how she responded in 1996 to Weinstein’s first proposition to her.  She said she would tell her younger self, “Good for you!  Good for getting yourself out of that situation without any harm being done.”  Sometimes that’s enough – just getting yourself out of harm’s way.  The people who criticize the scores of women Weinstein harassed do not understand how frightening and paralyzing it is to be in that situation.

All that said, I do have a problem with the number of very powerful women who have kept Mr. Weinstein’s sexual predilections quiet for so many years.  After all, it is widely reported that his methods for intimidating young women were known for decades.  So well known that a clause was written into his contract citing increasing monetary penalties for each lawsuit brought due to his misconduct.  I understand young, wanna be actresses not wanting to speak up about the most powerful producer in Hollywood.  But where were the women who were already famous and successful?  Why didn’t they speak up, either individually or collectively, to protect those who couldn’t?  Are we really supposed to believe that Meryl Streep “had no knowledge” about his harassment and Hillary Clinton was “shocked” to learn of his behavior?   These women who claim to be so much in the forefront for women’s issues were silent.  They found it convenient, for career or for cash, to overlook it.  Which brings me back to Ashley Judd.  She has been called “brave” by many who laud her for speaking out against Mr. Weinstein.  I was on board with that until I saw her interview with Diane Sawyer in which she said that in 1999 she was seated at a dinner table with him and told him off.  She noted, “I found my power and I found my voice.”  Think of the scores of women who would have been spared his deviant behavior had she used her voice to blow the whistle on him publicly at that time.

I have seen “brave” firsthand.  In the late 80’s I received a phone call from the Administrative Assistant to a senior manager in one of our major offices.  She was sobbing as she told me that the evening before, as she entered her boss’ office at the end of the workday, he pinned her against the wall, kissed her and was trying to get her blouse off.  She was able to escape his clutches and run from the building.  The following morning she called me from home.  She explained that she really needed her job – she was self-supporting and it was a very tight job market after the 1987 crash – but asked if I could call him and ask him to leave her alone.  When I explained that legally I had to have the situation investigated she panicked and asked me to forget that she called.  Of course, we had to proceed with an inquiry and she courageously told her story to the investigator.  We fired her boss the next day.

In my opinion, “brave” is an appellation belonging to that young woman, and all the others like her, who blew the whistle in the moment.  There is little bravery in waiting 20 years, once there is no longer a risk to personal or professional well being.  It seems to me that the height of hypocrisy is to be lectured about standing up for women from those who sat silent for so long.

Heroes

Recently I was on a conference call at work, the subject of which was marketing to seniors; we were referred to an outline of a book by Dan Kennedy entitled, No BS Guide to Marketing to Lending Edge Boomers & Seniors: The Ultimate No Holds Barred Take No Prisoners Roadmap to the Money.  Quite a long title and I was to later learn that the only thing worth remembering is the ‘BS’.  As a senior (I’m not sure if I’m a ‘Leading Edge’ senior, but I thought I had a pretty good idea of what works in marketing to me and my peers), so I listened and read the outline with particular interest.

There is a section in the book that talks about our heroes and that people selling to us should be aware of who our heroes are and talk them up when possible or at least don’t degrade them during your communication with seniors.  I couldn’t wait to see the list.  When I saw the list, I was waiting for the punch line, this couldn’t be real!  Who was on the list of heroes you ask? John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Sally Field, Oprah and Meryl Streep.  These are people that we supposedly ‘identify’ with.  Really?!!!  Five very polarizing people – 2 very conservative male actors and 3 very liberal female entertainers.  I thought this list was totally contrived.  I identify with none of these people and they are certainly not on my list of heroes.    So I wondered whether I was out of step with my generation or the author was, so I did a little research on the author, Dan Kennedy.

I quickly learned that he felt very highly of himself as being a ‘leading edge’ Boomer.  In his book introduction he states, “I have, and in random rotation drive, three classic automobiles including a Rolls-Royce convertible previously owned by Dean Martin.  I also have a stable full of Standardbred race horses and two homes, blah, blah, blah”.  He goes on to liken himself to Paul Newman, who used to race automobiles as a hobby, while Dan harness races for fun.  He then says, “I am the gold standard for seniors, if you can figure out how to successfully sell to me and satisfy me as a customer, you can open the vault to all boomer and senior gold . . .”

I guess I should have been impressed, but I’m typically more impressed with people who don’t have to tell me how wonderful they are, but still I wondered where he got his list of heroes and was he out of step or was I?  So I sent an email blast to about 25 of my peers asking them who their heroes were and to send me at least one male and one female ‘hero’.  I said nothing else, I didn’t give them the list of five that Kennedy put forward, no coaching, no prodding, just give me your heroes.  The results are in and my initial reaction to Kennedy’s list was justified and my faith in our generation renewed.  Four key findings from my survey:

  • The most popular response was a parent or parents or grandparents
  • Many cited heroes that were just people they knew, ordinary people who did extraordinary things to make this world a better place in which to live.
  • Five world leaders were named: Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela, George H W Bush, Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill
  • Not a single actor, actress or entertainer was named!

Other ‘heroes’ named included: Jesus Christ, Condoleezza Rice, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa, Pat Tillman, Carly Fiorina, Thomas Sowell, Dr. Ben Carson, Clarence Thomas, Anne Frank, Rosa Parks, John Glenn, Alan Shepard and Sally Ride. 

Hero groups: Navy Seals, Mercury 7 astronauts, anyone in the armed forces

Thank you to those who participated in the survey!

I realize that my sampling was very small, but I’d bet Mr. Kennedy’s Rolls-Royce (then maybe I’d be a Leading Edge Senior) that if he actually did the survey, instead of providing his own BS that he wouldn’t find many entertainers as heroes for our generation.

Care to chime in?  We’d love to hear who your heroes are.

Postcards and Postscripts

by Bob Sparrow

You would have had to be living in a cave for the last several weeks to not have seen a tribute or two about Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, after their passing on Dec 27th and 28th of last year.   We were reminded of how Debbie, at 19 and with zero dancing experience, partnered up with Gene Kelly and Donald O’Conner to create one of the most beloved musicals of all time, Singing in the Rain. She went on to have a number of successes as an actress, singer and businesswoman. But for my money, Carrie was the most talented one in that family.

I was first introduced to Carrie Fisher not in Star Wars, which came out in 1977 (and I didn’t see until sometime in the 90s), but by my dearly departed amigo, Don Klapperich, while he was in Saudi Arabia. We were not only sending music and audio cassette tapes back and forth to one another (prior to Al Gore inventing the Internet), but also our writing efforts in the hopes of publishing something. After reading a few samples of my efforts he recommended that I read the novel Postcards from the Edge (1987) by Carrie Fisher, that that seemed like the writing style I was trying to master. I read the book and loved it and of course he was right, it was indeed a style that I have tried to emulate without really knowing it . . . and without really much success.

Carrie followed Postcards, which was turned into a movie starring Shirley MacLaine and Meryl Streep , with a number of other novels, all of which had semi-autobiographical themes, as the heroine usually had a number of issues from which Carrie suffered – bipolar disorder, alcoholism and drug addiction.  She has also written some non-fiction books, the best in my opinion is Wishful Drinking, which she subsequently turned into a one-woman show that she performed to rave reviews! I’m sure some of you have seen it, but it’s worth another quick visit and for those who haven’t seen it I’ve inserted below a 10 minutes ‘taste’ from the hour+ performance. One of the highlights of that performance, which I could not find a short enough clip to insert here, is her explanation of her ‘family tree’ to her daughter Billie, when Billie asked if she could date Reese, the son of Mike Todd and Elizabeth Taylor, or were they somehow related?  Very entertaining!

Her life was filled with many highs and lows as she both dwelled in the limelight and suffered from failed relationships, but she has indeed left her mark.  If you’re not familiar with her work, I’d recommend taking a look; she’ll make you laugh as well as give you some very candid insight into relationships.

I’m thinking Don and Carrie would have made a great couple – great intelligence, great wit, a flare for the dramatic and both were just a bubble off plumb.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

September 8, 2011

Restaurants are attempting to increase our weight some more,

They now want to take food stamps at all the fast food stores.

The national obesity experts say that’s not the way we should behave,

And say our taxes will now be used to pay from “burger to grave”.

Baby boomers are now considered to be the most stressed out,

Watching retirement fade as their stocks have taken a clout.

Experts are advising calm and “not to over-medicate”,

This – to a generation that doesn’t know how to be straight.

Maryland’s Terrapins have new football “uni’s”,

And the best thing being said is they look a little loony.

More embarrassing still, they have the same theme,

And look remarkably like the women’s roller derby team.

The Kennedy Center has revealed this year’s honorees,

It’s a very distinguished group that will be on their marquee.

With Ma and Diamond tributes no one will be bored,

But what accent will Streep use when she gets her award?

For a personalized poem or tribute, visit our website at

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