I suppose if you have to think about whether you were sexually assaulted or harassed in the past, you probably weren’t.
But then again.
Spooked by the Harvey Weinstein sexual imbroglio, a much younger Sun-Times journalist recently inquired: “Hey, Sneed. You’ve been in this business 50 years … any famous people [harassed] you?”
The emphasis was on famous.
Pour the vodka.
Neat please.
Having spent five decades as a Chicago journalist — which included a few years at the rough-and-tumble City News Bureau, a decade as a troubleshooter involving worldwide assignments at the Chicago Tribune, a short stint as the late Mayor Jane Byrne’s press secretary, and 31 years as a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times — I gave the old sexual harassment memory a jog.
So here’s the result of my inventory.
It’s a snore, really.
Zzzz.
I was lucky.
No assault at the Sun-Times.
But it wasn’t easy for career women starting out in the late ’60s. We were held to different standards, low pay and paternalism.
When I began my career, we put up with so much male nonsense it was almost an expectation that something naughty was going to happen.
OPINION
And we were expected to deal with it by pretty much ignoring it.
And network TV news stars were especially good at hand jive.
So here’s my measly, but sometimes outrageous, inventory of bad deeds by bad dudes during my career.
• A late, but not lamented chief of the legendary City News Bureau of Chicago sent me for a “physical” to a well-known doc at Cook County Hospital he said was his “cousin.”
Back then, City News was paltry pay, so many reporters lived together. Comparing notes, we learned our boss’ mandated “physical” was meant to find out if we were virgins.
Sicko.
Our boss also sprayed his desk and phone constantly with disinfectant.
And did I say he gave me a phony set of pearls instead of a raise for Christmas?
True story.
Wackadoodle.
• Decades ago, it wasn’t unusual to be called “Chickie” and “Baby” by the men in your office.
• There was always a litany of famous newsmen from New York or second-rate actors from Hollywood who made passes, but weren’t truly badasses.
• But if you had the unfortunate habit of calling people “Honey,” it was trouble city.
• My “first exclusive interview” was conducted via a hand up my skirt under a table at a fancy restaurant by a former Cook County Board president decades ago. The hand was removed, but the interview continued.
• One of my favorite bosses, a great guy, insisted I wear a sexy evening gown to accompany him to the Pump Room, where Frank Sinatra was dining with Richard Nixon’s vice president Spiro Agnew, who was in big trouble and soon to go to jail.
My editor had snagged a table next to them, and my assignment was to listen to their conversation and write about it.
It was obvious a “suit” with a male ear could have been just as effective.
• Then there was the proposition by a Mexican lawyer who insisted I accompany him to Mexico City if I wanted a peek at the personal diary of Howard Hughes — who had just died. I gave his pass a pass. So did he.
• And then there was the uber rich Chicago magnate who had the unseemly habit of knocking on your hotel room door in a bathrobe while trying to give you a scoop.
Yikes!
Why reflect on such an inventory?
Sexual harassment is not funny.
I guess it was because somebody asked me.
Sneedlings . . .
I spy: Nascar champ Richard Petty spotted Thursday night at Harry Caray’s on Kinzie. . . . Saturday’s birthdays: Kim Kardashian, 37; Amber Rose, 34; Judge Judy Sheindlin, 75. . . . Sunday’s birthdays: Jesse Tyler Ferguson, 42; Christopher Lloyd, 79; and Ichiro Suzuki, 44.
