Adele Ferguson - Oct. 15, 2009

Focus in Letterman episode be vulnerability

THE PEOPLE taking the most interest in what has got to be the most picayune topic of the moment, the David Letterman affair, are, I suspect, women in the workplace.

There can’t be one woman who has spent any number of years out in the workplace who has never been propositioned by one of her male superiors. I mean, even the homely ones. Women, that is.

Often it’s the boss who’s homely. And if he’s hot to trot and doesn’t get to do much trotting at home, it’s that old song, if I’m not near the one I love, I love the one I’m near. After all, the equipment involved is about the same in everyone.

Attention in the Letterman case, where a TV cohort is accused of threatening to “out” the talk show host’s romances with the women who worked for him unless he was paid a large chunk of money, has centered on what it will do to the talk show host’s career. What it should be centered on is the vulnerability of women who work for men on whose approval they depend to keep their jobs. Remember that woman who was mauled by President Clinton and stayed on because she needed the job?

AS FOR LETTERMAN, isn’t he the one who told a “joke” about Sarah Palm’s daughter being knocked up by Alex Rodriguez in a 7th inning stretch?

This from a guy who knocked up his own long time girlfriend, a onetime employee, and didn’t marry her and make the baby legitimate for a couple of years.

What’s really sad about all this is that when he told the “joke” about the Palin daughter, his audience laughed. When he admitted lately during the show that he did indeed have sex with some of his employees, his audience laughed. I don’t know where they get these lowlifes to fill the seats at show filmings but they’re what you’d want on your jury if you raped somebody. They think it’s funny.

I have frequently had young women interview me on being in the newspaper business and other than asking what the pay and pension amount to, inquire as to dealing with the guys with ready zippers, in the news business and in politics.

I advised them to use the same pitch to any of them. “No, that would just get both of us in trouble.” That way, you haven’t outright rejected him as unworthy of your charms which could turn him into an enemy out to get rid of you. It works well when you have to maintain contact with someone you need accessibility to.

IN. THE CASES I know of where romance ensued, the person who broke it up was the spouse of one of the participants who went over their heads to the top boss and demanded he put a stop to it. Case one: the man was fired and the woman transferred to another newspaper.

In a case in Olympia where a top male aide to a legislator was dallying with a woman employee who accompanied him on official trips, etc., his wife complained to leadership. They kept him and moved the woman over to the other house.

Love does happen, of course. The daughter of a newspaper business manager who worked in one of the departments, fell in love with a sports writer, who was sent off to another newspaper. Love prevailed. They married and lived happily ever after. There often are couples working for newspapers who met there and were able to keep their jobs as long as one is not working for the other.

Things are a little different today. Women are bringing lawsuits for being harassed on the job, and being propositioned for sex certainly amounts to harassment. Some editors long ago formed the habit of leaving their office door open when they are talking to a lone woman employee. If your boss calls you in, ladies, and shuts the door, pick up a pad and paper and tell him you’d like to take notes.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)