The Generation Gap of Reasonableness

The explanation given way back when for the “reasonable person” standard is that people can only be judged by an objective standard of reasonableness. After all, there is always somebody who is so fragile, so delicate, so easily outraged that they will lose it over anything or find cause to be traumatized if that’s what they’re inclined to be. But that can’t possibly work for a society, since people cannot guide their conduct in accordance with the most fragile person alive, right?

Maybe not any more.

The question of the generation gap re-emerges

I’m old, which doesn’t make me tolerant of abuse of women, whether in the home or the workplace, far from it. But women my age distinguished — and I still do — between the Trumps, Kavanaughs, Weinsteins, Cosbys and the millions of males flirting or leering …. Until someone proves that Gov. Andrew Cuomo actually assaulted a woman or made sex the price of a hire, I see the cries for impeachment or resignation as ridiculous. — Emita Hill, former vice president of Lehman College, CUNY

Whenever debates about the #MeToo movement arise, the proverbial generation gap is never very far behind. Brian Lehrer suggested last week on WNYC, for example, that older men and women might feel that “the MeToo movement has usurped due process in too many cases, or that younger women today are too sensitive, or that a couple of unsolicited kisses are not worth destroying a whole, otherwise good man’s career over.”

This arose in the context of the six complaints against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, not all of which necessarily fall into the realm of what many “old” people would consider sexual harassment. Take the accusation of Jessica Bakeman, for example:

• Jessica Bakeman, a former member of the Albany press who says Mr. Cuomo touched her inappropriately on multiple occasions while she was reporting on him and publicly demeaned her.

These two complaints are chosen because they remove the controversial aspect of hostile work environment, which has become whatever makes a woman feel uncomfortable, and instead deal with two accusers who didn’t work for Cuomo, could tell him to get lost any time they wanted and suffer no consequences. But what did Cuomo do that was so traumatic, so awful, so horrifyingly wrong, that they make the list?

Jessica Bakeman says he “touched her inappropriately,” which means absolutely nothing, but has become the sort of worthless vagary that suffices in the world of the unduly sensitive to suffice. Here are more details.

I walked up to the governor, who was in the middle of a conversation with another reporter, and waited for a moment when I could interject. He took my hand, as if to shake it, then refused to let go. He put his other arm around my back, his hand on my waist, and held me firmly in place while indicating to a photographer he wanted us to pose for a picture.

My job was to analyze and scrutinize him. I didn’t want a photo of him with his hands on my body and a smile on my face. But I made the reflexive assessment that most women and marginalized people know instinctively, the calculation about risk and power and self-preservation. I knew it would be far easier to smile for the brief moment it takes to snap a picture than to challenge one of the most powerful men in the country.

But my calculation was a bit off. I was wrong to believe this experience would last for just a moment. Keeping his grip on me as I practically squirmed to get away from him, the governor turned my body to face a different direction for yet another picture. He never let go of my hand.

Then he turned to me with a mischievous smile on his face, in front of all of my colleagues, and said: “I’m sorry. Am I making you uncomfortable? I thought we were going steady.”

I stood there in stunned silence, shocked and humiliated. But, of course, that was the point.

Unwanted touching? So she says, and there’s no reason to doubt her. Creepy? Sure, why not? Sexual assault? Are you kidding? He held her hand and touched her back, then made a joke about it. It may well have been unwanted. I know I wouldn’t want it. But sexual misconduct? Sexual anything? De minimis non curat lex, but is there anything de minimis when it comes to women traumatized?

As Emit Hill said, “males flirting or leering” just seems like a ridiculous reason to be so outraged as to demand punishment. Anyone claiming trauma from their hand being held, their back touched, is not what an older person would consider reasonable. And yet, it’s sufficient for the New York Times to characterize it as “inappropriate touching,” as if he groped her breast or, god forbid, stare raped her.

Is this absurdly oversensitive, hyperbolic cries by someone desperately seeking victimhood, or is that us olds just don’t get it and we’re the one being objectively unreasonable for our inability to take seriously these cries of outrage over anything that offends the sensibility of the most fragile among us?