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There Is Always a Cost and Sometimes Life Sucks
Like all parents I have tried to impart some wisdom to my kids and teach them certain facts about life. All three of them grappled with the fact that, unlike life in the movies and TV, in real life everything has a cost, and bad things may happen to you without any recompense. During their childhood when something bad happened my kids would sometimes get angry and would demand that “we sue.” I finally figured out that they saw “suing someone” as a way of getting some sort of justice. In TV land the bad guys usually get their comeuppance and people are made whole with no cost to anyone except the bad guy. We are a sue-happy society and it’s no surprise that our children pick up on this.
But the cost to our society is that we now have a generation that thinks that there should always be someone in power who puts things right on their behalf and that nothing bad should ever happen without there being some sort of justice. Since this is the generation who got participation trophies so their self esteem wouldn’t be damaged, we have raised a really sensitive bunch of kids.
If a drunk driver slams into your car, the justice system should give you relief and try to make you whole. But the damages from a car wreck are far different then getting your feelings hurt by a speaker on campus. Do we want people demanding and worse, expecting, protection from feeling unsafe because someone said something hurtful? Should these so-called victims be made whole and at what cost to our society? What if the cost is a limitation on free speech just because we never taught our kids that sometimes bad things (hurt feelings) happen and that’s life?
This desire to be protected from anything uncomfortable and not nice can also be seen in the Bill O’Reilly story. He may be worst person in the world, I have no idea. But if my daughter had come home and told me that he made the stupid blonde comment and thanked her for her blondness, I think I might have laughed at this really silly comment. I wouldn’t have told her to go to HR, I would have told her that she needed to stand up for herself. Pointing out respectfully that, given his age, if he couldn’t tell the difference between all the blondes, he should go see the doctor get himself some glasses would have probably shut him up. Now if he had threatened her job or groped her, then its time to talk to HR and fight for her rights. But if she didn’t first try to stand up for herself, then she would have paid the cost of a diminished sense that she is in control of her life.
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I really enjoyed this. Wonderful!
Paula: I head the whole blonde story yesterday on the radio and I cracked up. The insulted party told it in such a breathless manner.
The comment was silly and a quick comeback was what was needed.
I haven’t had a “real” job since the late 80s. The blonde comment wouldn’t even be worthy of a re-tell back then.
And if my daughter came home and repeated something like that I would give the same advice you suggested. Geez, in her first job at 15 she worked in a restaurant and got hit on daily by customers, cooks and waiters. One guy in the kitchen even promised to buy her a goat …
On an unrelated note, this is the first time I have been glad that all those who “like” a comment have their identity revealed to all.
My first like was from @blondie
Now, there’s a conversation I’d like to hear in full. Did she negotiate for better terms? Say, he gives her the goat, and she doesn’t murder him when he lies to his friends about kissing her?
It was included with his proposal for marriage.
It’s been an ongoing joke in the family – here she is, married now with two beautiful baby girls. But she turned down a guy who was willing to buy her a goat!
LOL. You are quite right in your criticism. This is my first post and hopefully I will improve from here. Again thanks so much for taking the time to help me out.
Hmm, I was a waitress in Vegas for a little bit but I do not have any stories that can rival being offered a goat. I wonder if she was supposed to keep the goat as a pet or eat the goat in celebration. And I do love “the breathless manner” in which the blonde story has been told. As though, it was the worst thing to ever happen to the woman. If so she must live a very tame and boring life
My thoughts exactly, Paula. Imagine THAT being your go-to story when you are trying to outrage your listeners.
If I shared with her what was being said in the 80’s she’d have to retire to the feinting couch.
Ah yes, somehow we have raised a generation of Victorians who are both prudes in a lot of ways.
No problem Paula. I have no doubt that you will improve, as this was great! For me, I learned here how writing and punctuation is akin to being a chef. Presentation makes the meal as palatable as the meat.
Great piece, thank you for writing it. Looking forward to future ones.
My thoughts exactly! Just the other night on the AMU, I was relating some of the stuff we had to put up with before the term “sexual harassment” was even invented. I won’t go into it on the main feed, but take my word for it, it was a little bit worse than blonde jokes. We took care of it ourselves in our own way. We didn’t sue anybody and we didn’t need therapy. We have therapy in Texas though. It’s called “Get Over It!” These pathetic little marshmallows, always being encouraged to wallow in self-pity and victimhood. They wouldn’t have lasted 5 minutes in the 1980s, the little crybabies. There. I feel better now.
Don’t mess with Texas women!
Hey! We California chicks are no shrinking violets either ! (At least this Cali chick isn’t )
First of all, @annefy, I LOVE “feinting couch”. (FEINT: to pretend to ward off a blow or advance…)
I get what he means about the blondes. Is there a proprietary hair color kit called “Foxlight!” or “MeganMe!” or sump’n like that? They all do have the same lemon-mousse shade of hair, and it isn’t one you see very often in real life.
I will say that, if Fox makes its ladies dress the way they do, there might be something to the theory of a work environment conducive to , uh, not harassment, but to ogling. Tight brightly colored mini dresses, sleeveless even in Winter, deep asymmetrical bodices…this is work clothing? Can you imagine if they wore suits, over a buttoned up light colored shirt, like the gents do?
But the worst thing about alll this is it shows we’ve totally forgotten–no, repressed–the fact that heterosexual attraction is not something perverse, it’s what makes the world go ’round. As the great Camille Paglia pointed out decades ago now: male sex is HOT!! Or at least it used to be. Maybe men of O’Reilly’s and Trump’s age are the last of their kind. Of OUR kind. Of humankind.
They are not the last. Not as long as I live.
Not sure if I am missing the point here. If so, please accept my apology. But if this is about O’Reilly, I’ve got a different take.
It’s great that all of you self assured, strong conservative gals would have no problem shutting this jerk down. But this is a guy whose job is to interview people on TV. If his behavior starts to affect his ability to do that (some people refuse to be on his show,) putting aside the millions in settlements, he’s either gotta change that behavior or he’s gotta go.
These ladies who complained may be snowflakes, but put enough of them together and you get a blizzard.
Fox knew about 4or 5 complaints over the last 12 years, and still renewed oreilly’s contract. I just watched the press conference by Wendy Walsh, which was supposed to be the “explosive” new allegation which was the last straw. Bulltitties! Even the way she tells it, he got insulted because she immediately assumed he was going to “attack” her. Nothing happened! O’Reilly was brought down by a leftist organized effort targeting his advertisers. Period.
Some people refuse to be on his show? Yuh, no doubt. But it probably has more to do with dislike of Fox and of his views, than fear or revulsion at the revelation that he is a heterosexual male.
And the real target is Trump. Always.
I think you’ve made your points well, Paula. I wish more women would stand up for themselves at least the first time something happens and then report it if it doesn’t stop. The women who do so empower themselves by speaking up first and then reporting the person. Thanks.
Welcome aboard Ma’am.
P.S. You are attractive.
In principle, I agree that women have to stand up for themselves, and I’ve certainly had to do so in the work environment. Sometimes it’s just appropriate to just deal with men, and I don’t think a lot of young women today understand what real sexual harassment is as Kirsten Powers’ referenced comments seem to illustrate. (It’s not a crime to be boorish, which is how I’d describe O’Reilly’s public persona.)
That said, companies don’t pay out millions of dollars over blonde jokes. They really don’t.
I don’t believe we have any idea how Bill O’Reilly behaved behind closed doors. However, he’s made more money than all the people I know will make put together in their lifetimes, and he’ll have a parachute, too, even if he actually engaged in very bad behavior.
So… yeah. That’s that.
Personally, I wish someone would go back to, you know, reporting on the news. Or if they’re gonna have a personality-driven show, I wish it was that of an accessible intellectual like Bill Buckley who made real broadcasting history and will be remembered long after Bill O’Reilly’s memory fades away.
As ST says inimitably in #20: Welcome in! (His link was a wonderful conversation-starter re: this sort of thing, as well.)
I think too many conservatives are too quick to dismiss the charges. Steven Crowder used to work for O’Reilly years ago and he has said on his show that he knew this was coming. Crowder is happy that O’Reilly is finally getting his comeuppance.
I haven’t heard that Kirsten Power’s complaints were connected to a lawsuit or even a sexual harassment complaint. It’s seems to me she handled it more like the advice that’s been given here. She stuck up for herself and dealt with it.
Nobody was saying otherwise. We were saying that getting offended over a blonde joke is dumb. Nobody knows or hates true sexual harassment more than I do. Making a public big deal over a blonde joke trivializes the real thing and isn’t good for anyone.
I have no opinion on whether O’Reilly is guilty. I’m not sure of what he’s been charged with – sexual harassment? The term has become meaningless.
However, if the story noted in the OP is an example of his “crimes”? Then it’s a crock.
That having been said, I knew one victim of actual sexual harassment and she never never spoke of it. Not when it was going on (it was witnesses who forced her to formally complain) and not after the issue was settled.
So it’s logical to me that we may not have heard the worst of it.
But the idgit telling the blonde joke just sounds silly.
I like Kirsten Powers, but she made the comments in conjunction with a conservation meant to show O’Reilly’s sexism. It made me… shrug.
That said, companies aren’t in the business of paying out millions of dollars for boorish jokes. Therefore, I would definitely hesitate to be an apologist for this TV host. There’s more to this story that we probably won’t ever know.
I had a job as a waitress between my senior year in high school and freshman year in college. The owner and his wife both worked there, but he patted me on the rear several times when his wife was in the kitchen, much to my embarrassment. One day after work I asked him to join me outside and told him in no uncertain terms that I was going to go to his wife if he touched me even one more time. I expected to be fired; he not only kept me on but treated me with total respect for the rest of the summer. I was only 18 years old yet knew how to stop that sort of thing, so I have absolutely no sympathy for Kirsten Powers’ inability to look O’Reilly dead in the eye and tell him she didn’t appreciate his blonde comment.
Most of them look like they’ve dressed for a cocktail party. If you want to be taken seriously, look the part.
It looks to me like they have standing orders to show cleavage and leg. And as Hypatia pointed out above, way too many of them wear the same kind of dresses (clingy jersey, low cut, wraparound bodice) for it to be a coincidence. Those dresses aren’t even very chic really. That’s why I think they make them do it.