Female Journalist’s Sexual Harrassment of Male Naval Officer OK with Washington Post

Read this story and ask yourself the obvious question, "If a male journalist said these things to and about a female naval officer, what would the results be? (Washington Post, 7/25/09)"

Naval Commander Jeffrey Gordon has written a letter to the editor of the Miami Herald newspaper that employs Carol Rosenberg.  In it he complains of numerous offensive and degrading statements made by Rosenberg to and about him in the presence of others.  Executive Editor Anders Gyllenhaal of the Herald is apparently "looking into" the allegations in Gordon's letter.

Specifically, Gordon complained of "multiple incidents of abusive and degrading comments of an explicitly sexual nature."  As but one example, he says that when he stepped out of the shower wearing shorts and a towel, Rosenberg remarked to numerous people present, "Seeing him topless in tent city was the most repulsive sight I've ever seen in my life. I wanted to vomit."  In addition, Gordon's letter alleges that Rosenberg frequently suggested that he is gay and that he would, among other things, enjoy having a broomstick shoved up his rectum.

Now of course the Washington Post piece was written by a journalist who was at pains to contact other journalists to laud the many virtues of Carol Rosenberg.  Their defense of her is, in a nutshell, that she's aggressive and that sometimes rubs the brass the wrong way, but it's necessary to get the facts.

All of that says less than what they omit, which is any claim that Rosenberg didn't say the things Gordon attributes to her.  And it falls far short of answering the obvious question posed in my first paragraph.

After all, when faced with a (seeming) wrongdoer like Rosenberg, how is it possible to pretend on the one hand that she's a tough journalist and on the other that she's incapable of the type of abuse Gordon claims.  How can the Post and the journalists it quotes pretend that behavior that would never be tolerated in a man is in some way perfectly acceptable in a woman?

In most cases, gender equality is not a difficult concept.  This is one of those cases.  It is incomprehensible that articles like the one linked to simply don't grasp the fact that, if Rosenberg did the things Gordon charges, or even a few of them, she should be fired.  Wouldn't a man be?

Thanks to Ron for the heads-up.

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