From Washington, D.C. to Sacramento and other state capitols around the country, stories of sexual harassment just keep spreading.
Jobs are in jeopardy.
Lawyers are looking into legal settlements.
It's one thing when the misbehavior of movie producers and musicians gets widespread coverage. It's another when media figures, business executives, and politicians are stained by sexual scandals.
Women who work in the California state Legislature have been saying "enough is enough".
"I think over time the focus has been, how do you protect the institution of the Capitol?” State Sen. Toni Atkins (D-39th District) said. “But I think there are people saying, to protect the institution you have to have policies that actually work. You have to have employees that feel safe."
Last month, nearly 150 women who work in the California State Assembly and the California State Senate came forward with a statement of outrage over the sexual harassment they say they routinely endure.
Local
U.S. Senator Al Franken (D-MN) is now in a harsh limelight for his hands-on mistreatment of women, and it’s expected that the list of elected officials accused of similar behavior will grow longer.
In a recording session for Sunday's edition of NBC 7’s weekly “Politically Speaking" program, political consultant Laura Fink was asked about an unwelcome groping from then-Mayor Bob Filner in 2013.
She said she promptly began a process of bringing it to public attention, and it eventually became one of 20 sexual harassment complaints leveled against Filner, who left office convicted of felonies and misdemeanors.
As was reported earlier this week, Bob Filner's days in Congress also have come back to haunt him.
A Colorado lawmaker told "Meet the Press Daily" that she pushed him away when he confronted her in an elevator.
Fink and Atkins cited cultural factors such as power and domination behind certain men’s tendencies to press themselves upon women.
It’s time, they said, for young women and men to adjust their thinking if they hope to avoid the typecast roles that are played in sexual harassment scenarios.
"We shouldn't have to tell our daughters that this is going to happen to you, and you're going to have to deal with it,” said Fink. “We have to start at the root of the behavior -- which is the permissiveness that we allow men, the latitude that we allow them. And I think that will free men from having to participate in this sort of thing. Or if they're bystanders, to tolerate it."
