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Thursday, August 30, 2018

Provoctive story about workplace sexual harassment in the New Yorker

Last week's issue of the New Yorker ran an unconventional #Metoo story, Ways and means, by Sana Krasikov - a credible and complex story about an incident of sexual harassment in a public radio station somewhere in the Midwest. The story centers on a 30-something woman, Hal, working as a sound engineer at the station who learns to her dismay that the long-time radio host, a 60+ man named Oliver, has been dismissed because of a report of harassment. Over the course of this (relatively) long story, Sana meets w/ and has several conversations w/ Oliver, as we gradually learn that she had engaged in a consensual extra-marital affair w/ O, which is now over (he suspects she may have reported him to HR; she did not), we learn the details of the allegation (he is accused of making inappropriate personal inquiries to and groping the hand of one of the youngest members of the staff, someone whom Hal characterizes as flighty, ambitious, and possibly flirtatious - is this just her envy though? The key moment in the story, however, is Hal's meeting w/ a new HR exec - brought in by new corporate owners - during which, she realizes in retrospect, the HR woman was fishing to see in Hal could be persuaded to file a complaint - new ownership wants to get ride of the long-timer - who is grotesquely overpaid ($250k at a public radio station?, hard to believe). So everyone's complicit, except Hal - and - and the end, maybe, she too is complicit, as she realizes in a fit of pique that Oliver had been making advances while her own relation w/ O was still active. Everyone's guilty, then, of something - tho O is the only one to pay the price. The story is uncomfortable, it will make any reader think about this issue, and it's a tight and convincing narrative right from the start - even from the resonant and, I think, ironic title.

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