Ann Lawrence writes…
You're absolutely right. If we refer to what George Herbert Walker Bush did with the same term as what an out-and-out rapist does, we're confusing the issue. We devalue the term "sexual assault" or we're like the boy who cried wolf, trying to apply it to cases like what Bush did.
I have constantly been the victim of the kind of thing Bush is described as doing. I think most women have especially if they're often in a workplace or societal setting with a lot of men. I have never been the victim of the kind of thing Harvey Weinstein has practiced and I would never trivialize what was done to his victims by equating my own unpleasant episodes to what was done to them. It all should be stopped and as you said, the punishment should fit the crime. It won't if we can't differentiate between the scope and magnitude of the crimes.
Yeah. That's a better statement of what I was trying to say. If we confuse the two, we're just making it possible for people to say — of the kind of assault that probably should be identified as rape — "What's the big deal about sexual assault? Just some lady getting her ass patted!" That's not what we mean when we talk about actual assault.
By the way: I see another lady has come forth with a similar story about George H.W. Bush. I would imagine we'll hear from a lot of them now that they don't have to think you don't report that kind of thing when the Leader of the Free World (or the former Leader of the Free World) does it. It oughta be called-out when anyone does it. Meanwhile, I got this from Jamie Coville…
Perhaps the term we call what the 90 year old Bush Sr. did is sexual misconduct?
Even with that, I'm not 100% comfortable reducing what Bush Sr did. If that occurred in a normal workplace environment (eg a meeting with a bunch of co-workers) and the perpetrator was a regular working non senior citizen adult, it would definitely be called sexual harassment at the very minimum. Said perpetrator would (or should) be heavily reprimanded, if not outright fired and I personally lean towards fired. There is no way a reasonably intelligent adult doesn't know that grabbing ass and making dirty jokes, repeatedly, is inappropriate workplace behavior*.
*Unless it's NFL players doing it to each other during game play.
Since I don't think society will use different terms for what Bush Sr. did based on age & well being of the perpetrator, I think it'll have to be sexual harassment.
And that's a pretty good term for it, as is sexual misconduct.
I just keep thinking of women I've known — actresses, mostly — who have these very real, very chilling tales of having some man expose himself and trying to force their heads where he wants them or lunging after them…and the feeling of helplessness they felt when they decided they couldn't report such incidents without doing greater, more traumatic damage to themselves. What Bush is alleged to have done (and I guess since he's apologizing instead of denying, we need not say "alleged") is not to be excused but it's not an equal crime. It needs to be dealt with in a different manner.
Someone in Bush's age bracket might recall a time when he did that kind of thing and women didn't object, at least out loud. That kind of man needs to be told that while it was never really acceptable, the days when it was accepted are long gone. I don't think most of them ever thought that what Bill Cosby did was acceptable.