Sex Is Not Why Cain's Sexual Harassment Settlements are Important

As a victim of sexual harassment and sexual assault, many might feel that it is a knee jerk response, on my part, to attach importance to the sexual harassment settlements made on behalf of Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain. They would be wrong.

I am paying attention to these allegations and settlements because it gives you a window into Herman Cain's character. Since he has only recently arrived on the national scene, we do not know much about him. The national media has not properly vetted him.

The subsequent history of the men that harassed me might be illustrative. One  was my regional sales manager of the brokerage firm that I employed me. Since I filed my charges in the 90's during the Wild West period of Wall Street, nothing happened to the perpetrator after the firm settled with me. 18 months later, he was fired after black brokers named him in a class action discrimination suit. The suit alleged that he poked fun of blacks by performing "in white face during a minstrel type show at the firm's Christmas party". The settlement in that case was in seven figures. The lesson drawn from this case could be that sexual harassers are usually equal opportunity bigots.The firm should have drawn the right conclusion from my lawsuit - they had a problem employee. If they had, they might have insisted that he undergo sensitivity training and avoided the second lawsuit and its multi-million payout.

The second man was a tycoon of finance held in the highest esteem when I leveled my charges. By the way he behaved during the attack and handled my accusations, it was clear that he took too many risks, played fast and loose with the facts, wanted to win at all costs, and did not know how to deal with people.The public discovered this afterwards. His firm shortly thereafter took a company public that went bankrupt six weeks later. Accusations were leveled that his firm knew the company was failing and rushed taking it public so that they could cash in before the bankruptcy. Later, his partners pushed him out the door of the firm that he singlehandly founded in a bitter dispute.

Since Herman Cain has not handled the fallout from the revelation of the sexual harassment charges particularly well, many in the media, who do not like to talk about sex, have decided the pr debacle is the issue. They are wrong. The issue is his character. His lack of knowledge about the settlements indicates arrogance. He did not ask about the settlements because that would have been admitting that he made a mistake. Then, he might been forced to alter his behavior.  Even if he thought that his actions were funny or non -offensive, he needed to change them because it was costing the organizations that he worked for money.

This also says something about our corporate culture.Except in the case of serial harassers, businesses do not tolerate employees, even star ones, that keep costing the company money.