revenge of the nebbish...

nebbish...like most words it loses so much of its essence in translation...actually,  I think all Yiddish words lose 95% of their "flavor" in translation...and so you have a nebbish..."a pitifully ineffectual, luckless, and timid person"...Saturday night I winced watching SNL host Larry David draw a somewhat painful common thread amongst several of those high profile men accused of sexual assault and intimidation...that being religion...Jewish...and for Larry David...a man I usually find quite funny...I kept thinking no, no, no you're missing the point...(let's not even discuss the concentration camp shtick)...the common thread...and this extends to Spacey and other gentiles in this group as well...is what I call the "nebbish factor"...the men you walked past in life...those who sat awkwardly invisible at the end of bars...who you ignored, or worse, bullied in school...ah, what power and money can do...Weinstein, Spitzer, Spacey....the list grows...years of them very visibly in the media...successful politician or actor or creative force or money-maker...all masking lurid behavior silenced with that power...many women, and men, who have been perusing the tabloids of late have been silently nodding in agreement...perhaps remembering being on the receiving end of very unwanted advances from bosses and other figures who dictated their business advancement or paycheck...or maybe you cannot understand why it took people so long to speak up...if so, you are either lucky enough to have never been on the receiving end of sexual harrassment or worse...or you are forgetting that the evolution of a safe and balanced work environment is the perpetual one step forward, two steps back...because all I can think of as this happens is that ugly memory of a vice president of my department in the 80's...at a very well-respected cable network.... introducing him to my husband, my fiance at the time...and him glaring...a very polished, impeccably dressed nebbish, joking how we must be glad that my yeast infection cleared up...and we stood stunned...what to say?...oh, I know some of you reading this are laughing...thinking, it was only a joke...well, it never is a joke if the one telling it could destroy your future career in the time it took for a witty response...and it is nothing new...the casting couch was never a sale item at Sears...but if we want to move forward then we can't lose sight of the work we should be doing...let's not go down a rabbit hole of floundering punishment (because who is Netflix punishing if everyone at "House of Cards" loses their jobs?)...try the crimes in a court of law...make sure company policies have real teeth...and really treat the disease at the root...your sons are not all princes...your daughters should never trade their souls for the crown...