I was planning to compile presidential candidate reactions to this week’s two big U.S. Supreme Court decisions for the weekend thread, but this disturbing feature for the Kansas City Star derailed my plans. Jason Hancock and Steve Kraske report on a pervasive hostile work environment for women at the Missouri Capitol. I’ve posted a few excerpts below, but you need to click through and read the whole piece, which explores the toxic culture fueling the harassment and lack of accountability.
Too many women working at the Iowa statehouse have had similar experiences. I’ve heard some appalling stories in private communications, and no, it’s not a partisan problem. My impression is that over the last 15 to 20 years, the work environment at the Capitol in Des Moines has improved, and sexual harassment is no longer as prevalent for Iowa legislative staffers as it is in Jefferson City, Missouri. That said, if even half of what Kirsten Anderson alleged in court filings is true, the culture at the Iowa statehouse is far from where it needs to be.
For a politically-engaged young person starting a career, there can hardly be a more exciting job than working in a state legislature. I feel physically ill thinking of how many women have had powerful men ruin these potentially enriching experiences. Harassment can cause severe emotional trauma. One former Missouri legislative staffer told the Kansas City Star, “The best thing that ever happened to me was getting another job and leaving that building.” Hardly any of the perpetrators faced real consequences for their unethical (and in some cases illegal) conduct toward female interns or legislative employees.
Speaking of hostile environments, many social conservatives appear to be hunkering down in a siege mentality following Friday’s Supreme Court decision on marriage equality. I am continually baffled to see how opinion leaders on the Christian right are so eager to view themselves as persecuted minorities. No church will be forced to officiate or recognize a same-sex marriage, any more than the Catholic Church has been forced to marry people who had civil divorces over the last five decades.
Some of the over-the-top reactions to the marriage ruling are laughable. But when you think about it, how unhealthy to convince yourself and your followers that religious Americans are now “vulnerable.” Christian martyrdom is still a tragic reality in some parts of the world, but fomenting paranoid ideas about the fate of American conservatives doesn’t benefit anyone. Check that: I can see how some people and corporations could profit from spreading fear that Christians are about to be persecuted on a mass scale and “Must Now Learn To Live as Exiles in Our Own Country.”
Having spent most of my life in metro areas where my fellow Jews made up less than 1 percent of the population, I’ve wondered what it would have been like to live in a larger Jewish community as a child. But one huge plus about growing up in Iowa was learning at an early age that the whole world wasn’t ever going to validate my religious perspective, nor did I need the mass culture to approve and promote my beliefs. I encourage disappointed social conservatives to learn that life lesson sooner rather than later.
Jason Hancock and Steve Kraske reporting for the Kansas City Star: “Dozens of women say they were sexually harassed while woking in Missouri Capitol.”
“If a legislator harasses a staff member, the general feeling is that nothing is going to happen,” said a former female legislative assistant to a Republican state representative. “It’s not like (the legislator) can get fired. But our lives can be ruined.”
Another former Republican House staffer said she endured months of sexual harassment, from lewd comments to a torrent of unwelcome advances. When her male boss spoke up for her to the perpetrators, it sparked hurtful and untrue rumors that the two were having an affair.
“The best thing that ever happened to me,” she said, “was getting another job and leaving that building.”
The isolation of a small-city capital dominated by powerful men away from home – and the idea of what happens in Jefferson City stays there – makes the place hostile territory for women pursuing careers in state government.
A recent Harvard study found that geographic isolation of state Capitols reduces accountability. […]
“It’s a place where power and money and isolation mix together and create an atmosphere that is more like a convention at times,” said Dave Robertson, professor of political science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.