Bill Cosby has twice been the focus of a trend, possibly major each time. Once by design, once by personality defect.
The importance of “The Cosby Show” (1984-92) cannot be overstated. It let us white Americans relate to a wildly successful black family, Heathcliff Huxtable, a father and obstetrician/gynecologist (irony noted), and Clair Huxtable, a mother and lawyer. The success-bound kids had attributes and issues that resonated with non-black Americans.
Then, on April 26, Cosby was convicted by a jury in Norristown, Pennsylvania, his home turf, of three counts of aggravated indecent assault. The jury was seven men and five women. And in a predominantly white county (Montgomery), two jurors were black. That’s 16.7 percent of a jury that was black in a county that is 9.6 percent black.
Several women said at the time, “Finally, they listened to the women.”
The verdict could be overturned. Some who know far more about law than I do say the unprecedented testimony by women who said they had suffered similar assaults but had not filed charges may invalidate the conviction. Still, its importance is that the words of women were taken as truthful over the assertions of men (Cosby, et. al.) that the sex between them was consensual. A famous man presented as a model of rectitude, at that.
They listened to the women.
It’s a big step, for women and for men, in the movement that is slowly overturning the notion of male privilege, that is, the feeling among men that we have access to women’s bodies without necessarily getting consent.
The Cosby case does not settle the issue for all time. More trials are to come. More convictions. More hung juries, as happened in the first Cosby trial. More men will fight the accusations, such as former Trump speechwriter David Sorensen. More enablers will step forward, such as Gov. Paul LePage, who hired Sorensen back to his old job in Augusta after Sorensen quit Trump’s team. And, there will be acquittals.
Most of all, there will be more cases settled by non-litigation acts.
Harvey Weinsteins will be fired, Garrison Keillors will be expunged from histories that they, basically, wrote. People in charge —of movie studios, broadcasting companies, newspapers and magazines — are listening to the women. Steps forward won’t be just legal steps. The preponderance of (not-in-the-courtroom) evidence — you might think of the #MeToo movement as an organization to accumulate the preponderances — will lead some in authority to take action, to dismiss a Matt Lauer or a Charlie Rose for behaving as if they had access to women’s bodies without needing consent.
Expect, too, that some women will make charges that turn out to be false, motivated by a quest for 15 minutes of fame, by revenge against a jilting lover, by who knows what. Any wave brings an undertow that counters the force of the wave.
Some people will listen to the women and hear something that others do not hear. They will take actions that others see skeptically. A bookstore owner might refuse to sell the books of an author who has been accused (not convicted) of sexual harassment, even while continuing to sell the books of an author who is a boor.
Progress isn’t ubiquitous. On April 24, The New York Times reported that 23 of the Fortune 500 companies are headed by women. That’s wee progress, but 21 of those 500 are headed by men named John. Not to mention another 456 corporations headed by men not named John. And fewer CEOs are women than are men named James.
The disparity extends to other endeavors, too. In the U.S. Senate, fewer Republicans are women than are men named John. And, it’s even-Stephen. Fewer Democratic governors are women than are men named John. Among movie directors fewer women directed top-100 box office movies than did men named Michael and James combined.
On the plus side, 52 percent of the editors of top-100-selling magazines are women, and nine of the 24 “genius grants” awarded by the MacArthur Foundation went to women. These numbers in The Times’s “glass ceiling index” are set out in a light sort of way, but they matter because people are likely to hire and promote people like themselves.
If women aren’t there yet, they are coming on steadily. About a third of physicians are women, except in the south, where it is closer to a fourth. A similar ratio (1:2) applies to lawyers, although about two in five law-firm partners are women. About 57 percent (four in seven) of college students are women. Nearly 51 percent of college graduates are women. Nearly 51 percent of medical students are women. More than 51 percent of law school students are women. (Oh, well, you have to take the bad with the good.)
These numbers show progress in the making, not progress achieved.
Personal note. I count myself an evolving male. I try to honor boundaries. A woman friend and I meet from time to time to console each other over the still-hurting deaths of our spouses. When we attended a movie a few months ago, my friend leaned forward, pushed her shoulders together, wriggled a bit to relieve stress. I knew the sign. Had it been my late wife, I would have rubbed her shoulders. But I kept my hands to myself and kept watching Jennifer Lawrence take on the Soviet empire.
I told her later that I had wanted to rub her shoulders, but that “I don’t have permission to touch you in that way.” The boundary was clear, and I honored it, much as I wanted to cross it. I resisted the temptation to yield to “male privilege” and rub her shoulders.
Bob Neal continues to evolve. The woman whom he didn’t touch at the movie house is now his steady date. Chalk up another for listening to the women.
Bob Neal
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