It was appropriate that in her first Condition of the State speech, Iowa's first female governor addressed a scourge that has dominated national and local headlines for much of the past year. Though the same attention from her predecessor would have been welcome, it's doubtful that Terry Branstad, now the U.S. ambassador to China, would have used such a forum to bring up sexual harassment.
"Throughout history, sexual harassment has been a stain on our culture, a destructive force _ in politics, media and entertainment, in workplaces large and small _ in all facets of life," Gov. Kim Reynolds declared Tuesday. "And it must stop."
Indeed, it must. Sexual harassment, or assault, ruins victims' lives, educations and careers. Many of them are female and underage. It has festered in the boardrooms of corporations but also in the athletic departments of small-town Iowa schools, and in the examining rooms of small-town Iowa doctors' and dentists. Now finally, we're seeing a wave of powerful men pay some consequences over it, but only after women have had to take great risks to call it out.
The revelations of sexual harassment in Hollywood dominated Sunday's Golden Globe Awards, where veiled and overt denunciations of it were represented by the black clothing worn by some and the "Time's Up" pins on others, and by the powerful remarks of Oprah Winfrey and other speakers.
Calling attention to it is an important first step, and Reynolds rightly commended the unnamed women who found the courage to speak out about it. The question is where Iowa goes from there. Although the governor proposed specific solutions to other issues facing the state, in trade apprenticeships and short-term mental health crisis centers, for example, she said sexual harassment is not something that can be "fixed by legislation or rule-making alone. You cannot legislate kindness or respect or morality."
So then what? It's an issue that has affected every Iowan directly since state taxpayers last year spent $1.75 million to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit by Kirsten Anderson. She's the former Republican Senate staffer who said she was fired after reporting sexual misconduct in her job. Reynolds didn't bring her case up at all, though it was the closest one to where everyone stood or sat Tuesday while Reynolds spoke.
Reynolds is right that it's not a partisan issue. But it would have been nice to hear her offer some lessons learned from the Iowa Senate's handling of Anderson's case, some steps that might have been taken or still should be to prevent such behavior in the future. Being kind and respectful are not enough.
Reynolds, a Republican, to her credit had called on Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix to release the findings of an internal investigation on sexual harassment in response to Anderson's lawsuit, when he was refusing to do so. Who was he protecting? He finally did release the report by the Senate secretary, which covered the period from December 2012 through July 2017. It said several staffers felt fearful of retaliation, leading them not to report instances of harassment. It also found anti-harassment training was ineffective, that the "zero tolerance" for harassment in Senate personnel guidelines was not properly framed or understood.
In Tuesday's remarks, Reynolds offered a more generic observation about everyone needing to model proper behavior. She might have really shown she meant business by saying, "Anyone who perpetrates sexual harassment in the workplace or tries to silence complaints of it will be subject to job loss."
Instead of a vague reference to "culture," she might have talked about the male and female power differential in the workplace that reflects the power and pay differentials in society. This isn't simply an issue of being nice to your co-workers. It's an issue of entitlement that often comes with one sex having greater authority in the workplace and believing female co-workers are fair game and that there will be few consequences for abuses.
Any politician would do well to raise the subject of sexual harassment these days. It's on everyone's minds. Not only did accused pedophile Republican Roy Moore suffer a stunning defeat to Democrat Doug Jones in the Alabama Senate race, but 87 percent of Iowans agree workplace sexual harassment is a problem, according to an Iowa Poll taken last month. And in a USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll, three in four people surveyed in both parties and of both sexes called it a major issue that needs real solutions.
Reynolds said this is not a Democratic or Republican issue. But in an interview after the speech, Senate Democratic Minority Leader Sen. Janet Petersen, who has criticized the Senate's handling of the issue, said Republicans hadn't included Democrats in their plan to hire a human resources person to oversee this issue. She said Democrats learned of it just Monday. Petersen said she had reached out to Ambassador and former Republican lawmaker Mary Kramer with a list of suggested steps to take.
Dix, for his part, said he was grateful that "Senate Minority Leader Petersen has now come on board and recognized that we need to take this very seriously."
Sure, there will be finger-pointing; that's politics. But if both parties are serious about tackling this issue, they need to address it honestly and holistically, beginning with an understanding of the broader dynamics of inequality between men and women in society. We need strict sets of guidelines, penalties and training, including for bystanders, tailored for schools, workplaces, businesses and government. And let's not rule out new laws or tweaks to ones that already exist. No more making excuses, looking the other way or denying what we all now know exists.
