Hillary Clinton is right: her husband's case was not mistreated

But sometimes a double standard exposes not only bad faith, but also a rule that should not have been adopted. Mrs. Clinton was right: Monica Lewinsky was technically an adult at the time of the infamous affair with Mr. Clinton in 1995-96. She was also old enough to know what she wanted and to report on it. What she wanted, rightly, it seems, was the married White House occupant who had been spectacularly successful.

Believing that a woman is abused as soon as her supervisor manifests a romantic interest, it is to consider the employees as slaves. It is neo-Marxism at work: the notion that an employee occupies a posture so fundamentally compromised, vis-à-vis the boss, that she can never consent because she does not want to. has no ability to refuse. The fact that this conviction focuses exclusively on economic imbalances – and not, for example, those caused by an imbalance in charisma or physical attractiveness – betrays the trace of Marxist fingerprints.

Whenever we talk about power imbalances between the sexes, I often think of my grandmothers, who became major in the 1940s, in a much more sexist era – in fact, in a time of sexual harassment in the work almost without restriction. Yet, in every respect, neither had any difficulty in refusing a man. It was not because they were rich or they held positions of power, but because they knew who they were. They possessed a picturesque resource called "dignity". And any man having met one or the other woman understood that she was not going to separate from it.

Some male leaders undoubtedly require their subordinates to form relationships. This is a form of abuse, as is the case with employees who live under the threat of deportation. However, it is as absurd as it is denigrating to say that every woman in every workplace is vulnerable in the same way simply because she did not get a job of equal rank to the one who wants to attend.

An "abuse of authority" occurs when a person is exploiting the function or resources of his position to procure something for which employment does not entitle him. If President Clinton had told Ms. Lewinsky that he would fire her if she did not show up – or ask the Internal Revenue Service to check her family – it would have been a flagrant abuse of power. But using the charm and the success shown to seduce a young woman is the oldest stratagem of the book. The fact that he was married at the time made his behavior odious. The fact that he conducted his affair to the White House made it unseemly. The fact that he lied under oath was a crime. But none of this is like exploitation, and it is only because we have so much trouble expressing a moral judgment that we turn to the law to remedy what are essentially character weaknesses. .

Attending a workplace invariably creates a liability for employers, especially when it comes to a young beginning employee and her immediate supervisor. This opens the door to favoritism and conflict. # 39; interests. Employers have a legitimate interest in managing these risks. But none of this makes such an abusive encounter. Many Americans met and fell in love at work. And if some of the men who flirted with their future wives at work were foolish enough to think that they were consolidating their position in a fixed hierarchy, marriage healed them quickly of this notion.

So what does it matter? Why defend Bill Clinton? Because since her affair with Mrs. Lewinsky went public, we created a monster. The harassment industrial complex – lawyers, human resource professionals, activists – is enforced as our collective chaperone, the high priest of the court, invested with the power to decide what advances are kosher. Henchmen are regularly sent to attack those who have too much wealth or notoriety or who have unfavorable political opinions.

We should recover the adulthood among professionals because it is everywhere in decline. When the desires of two adults conflict, in the absence of violence or real harassment, let the individuals go out to solve the problem, move on, try again with someone else. 39, one of them. This is the story of the American parade that inspired not only male pursuers like Beach Boys, Sam Cooke and Four Tops, but also the women who caught them in the act – like Aretha Franklin, Dolly Parton and Taylor Swift. This is the rocky road of love that never made way for a quiet passage, but still left us wise. If this creates a complication for employers, so be it. Perhaps the last thing to do is to simplify the life of lawyers.

Ms. Shrier is a writer living in Los Angeles.