Sexual Harassment Laws

The Harvey Weinstein Scandal Makes Holding Donald Trump Accountable For Misbehavior With Women An Urgent Matter!

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The disgraceful behavior towards women of Harvey Weinstein, famed Hollywood producer, has brought the issue of sexual harassment and sexual aggression of powerful men toward women in Hollywood and the corporate world and in society in general into new attention.

It is totally unacceptable that any woman in the work world should have to deal with this.

One would think after the Justice Clarence Thomas debacle in 1991, and the adoption of sexual harassment laws shortly after, that this would not be the problem that it clearly is in 2017.

One out of five women, and possibly more, have faced or will face such misbehavior by men, and our President is clearly a leading abuser of women and their bodies, as he himself bragged about in the infamous Access Hollywood tape a year ago, which should have been the nail in the coffin of his Presidential candidacy, but did not lead to his defeat.

But Trump still needs to be held accountable, as much as Harvey Weinstein and every other sexual abuser, no matter how famous or unknown each person is.

Bill Clinton was held accountable and impeached by the House of Representatives in 1998, although not convicted and removed from office by the Senate in 1999. But he suffered the torment and embarrassment of going through the impeachment process.

Meanwhile, the Republican leaders of the House of Representatives were themselves engaged in such misbehavior, including then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and others, including Henry Hyde, Bob Livingston, and even Dennis Hastert, future Speaker who had victimized teenage boys in his earlier career as a high school wrestling coach.

The Republicans were very willing to pursue Bill Clinton, while continuing their own bad behavior.

Where is the Republican outrage about Donald Trump and his misbehavior over the years?

It is time to hold Donald Trump accountable, as much as Harvey Weinstein, Bill Clinton, and others, and to impeach him for his misbehavior, along with many other impeachment charges, and make it clear that just because one is wealthy and powerful, that he cannot get away with such abuse.

Time For Action By Congress On H. R. 19, Authorizing National Women’s History Museum On National Mall!

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The Congress has accomplished nearly nothing under Republican leadership in 2017, but one action they should unite on is the passage of H.R. 19, authorizing the construction of a National Women’s History Museum on the National Mall.

Democratic Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney of New York introduced the legislation authorizing the building of the museum on March 30, 2017. It was referred to a Subcommittee On Federal Lands on April 7, 2007, and no further action has yet been taken. There were 127 cosponsors with Maloney, and now an additional 100, for a total of 227, have been added to that list.

Maloney has tried to lobby personally with President Donald Trump, his wife Melania, his daughter Ivanka, Vice President Mike Pence’s wife Karen Pence, and Kelly Anne Conway. to join in support of the museum project, but one wonders what the odds of endorsement are from a President who is a known misogynist.

Despite earlier moves to get this legislation accomplished under President Barack Obama, it failed to be dealt with before he left office. In 2014, the Congress voted to create a commission to study the creation of a national museum, and now the time for action has arrived in this 115th Congress.

Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine introduced the Maloney bill in the Senate with 11 co-sponsors, but there is little enthusiasm evident to make such a museum part of the Smithsonian Institution, due to other priorities, and the issue of private funding being a long haul.

We are coming up to the centennial of women’s right to vote (19th Amendment) in 2020, and it would be appropriate that we were well on the way to the creation of such a building to honor the role of women, half of our population, which has been mostly ignored until now.

Ironically, though, the Republican Party has become so anti women’s rights, that they are likely to refuse to take action on this, as they work to undermine a woman’s right to an abortion; the right to equal pay; the right to be protected from sexual harassment; and the right to be treated as equals to men in all aspects of life.

Too often, the religious Right has worked against women’s equality, and the Republican Party, the party that many early women’s rights advocates supported in the 19th and 20th centuries, now has taken steps backward in their advocacy of equality.