Just in case we'd forgotten it, here's an update from last winter's news story.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/06/29/iowa-court-reconsiders-case-involving-dental-assistant-fired-for-being/
Woman, age 32, has been doing good work for ten years. She’s married. Man, age 59, makes flirtatious remarks, which woman hears as jokes and answers in kind, because the idea that older people still have the same hormonal feelings and dramas that they do is not something young people usually like to think about. He’s also married. They talk about their families at work. They mention their families, and exchange a few flirty jokes, in e-mail. His wife sees the e-mail and goes into a panic spin, because who hasn’t read about a man leaving his wife for someone young enough to be their daughter, and these days people will still speak to those men, socially. He doesn’t even want to have sex with the woman, but can he give up teasing and joking about it? He tries. He can’t. His wife demands that he fire the woman “for being an irresistible attraction.”
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/06/29/iowa-court-reconsiders-case-involving-dental-assistant-fired-for-being/
Woman, age 32, has been doing good work for ten years. She’s married. Man, age 59, makes flirtatious remarks, which woman hears as jokes and answers in kind, because the idea that older people still have the same hormonal feelings and dramas that they do is not something young people usually like to think about. He’s also married. They talk about their families at work. They mention their families, and exchange a few flirty jokes, in e-mail. His wife sees the e-mail and goes into a panic spin, because who hasn’t read about a man leaving his wife for someone young enough to be their daughter, and these days people will still speak to those men, socially. He doesn’t even want to have sex with the woman, but can he give up teasing and joking about it? He tries. He can’t. His wife demands that he fire the woman “for being an irresistible attraction.”
Comments on
this story show that, without knowing what the woman looks like or how she dresses,
a lot of people pictured Cameron Diaz in a skimpy camisole and stretch-to-fit miniskirt.
Reality check:
I’ve seen this kind of situation develop when the man was an 80-year-old
patient and the woman was a 59-year-old nurse, 5’2”, 160 pounds, baggy smocks,
slacks, bifocals, white shoes, white hair pinned up in a bun. Some Irresistible
Attraction out there may look like Cameron Diaz for all I know, but it wouldn’t make much
difference if she looked and dressed like Whoopi Goldberg...in Sister Act.
There is
something about a person who works well with you. Something about the
attentiveness, the synergy, the philia
love (which is actually the kind the New Testament writers told wives to
cultivate toward their husbands). What people who work well together feel is love. Sometimes, usually but not
always if they’re the same sex, occasionally if they find each other really repulsive, people can love each other in
this way and never want to do anything but go on working together. More
often..they may be able to listen to reason and say no to the physical
attraction, but sooner or later they notice that a physical attraction is
there.
Ms.
Irresistible Attraction said, “It wasn’t even sexual harassment. I saw him
as a father figure.” Oh, right. I believe that. I really do. The first year or
two, she sees him as a father figure. Then one day something goes wrong between
her and her husband, and she is shocked, just shocked, to realize what kind of
thoughts about this father figure are coming to mind. At thirty-two, she
doesn’t see this coming? Maybe in Iowa. I’m told people grow up more slowly
there. My husband was older than I was; for the first year or two I saw him as
a sort of uncle figure, too, before he became a friend, and then a partner. He wasn't married. Nor was I shocked.
But I’m not at
all comfortable with the idea that she can lose her job, that if her husband
isn’t well paid her children could suffer, merely because she has this
inappropriate attraction thing going with her employer.
Because these
people consulted a pastor first, before the firing and the lawsuit, let’s
consider the situation in moral terms. These people are Christians. Does the
Christian church have a specific policy for situations like this?
It does,
although a Protestant pastor might be pardoned for not knowing what that policy
is. The church that found it necessary to develop a policy for dealing with
inappropriate attractions to co-workers was the Catholic Church, with its long
tradition of delegating jobs to nuns and priests who are expected to work
together and treat each other as relatives while
both are celibate. Historically there have been a lot of inappropriate attractions between nuns and priests. And the
church has a contractual obligation to both of them; if they do the right thing
and confess the attraction as a sin, neither of them can be fired. What they
can be is transferred to different positions so that they don’t see much of
each other any more.
Since these
people in Iowa are Protestants, they may have more spiritual truth, but they don’t have
the massive corporate structure of the Catholic Church to rely on. Since the
boss is self-employed, they don’t even have the structure of a private
corporation.
And I do
empathize with the wife. As a relatively young widow I’ve talked to a lot of
men who weren’t even friends and working partners, who said things like “My
wife is old and sick, and we don’t do things together any more.” Then if I ask
more questions about the wife, “old and sick and we don’t do things together”
turns out to mean “three weeks older than I am, and in better condition
actually, but she didn’t
feel like coming out to wherever it is that I met you.”
In the case of
one co-worker, though, the wife really was over seventy, disabled, and not
expected to live through the winter. And her younger husband didn't look like a father figure to me, either. If this hadn’t been one of the first few
men I met as a widow, I might have been tempted to take the non-Christian
position—“Stick her in a nursing home and have fun with me!” But I thought about him, unselfishly, and said, “Being widowed is bad enough without adding guilt
to it. You have to do whatever you can do for her, resolve any problems you’ve
had, tell her you love her every day...”
She did live
through the winter. At last report she was still alive. And has she ever
thanked me for not wrecking her home? Hah. Well...if I, in my late forties, had become involved
with some thirty-year-old kid, and if I had any suspicion that he was telling
other bright young things about the “older woman” in his life, would I go out
and thank some thirty-year-old chick for turning him down? Hah. I suspect I’d
be saying, “Sensible child. Now go
and find some other young man,
preferably one from a different state, or better yet a different country, and
stay away from my husband.” Just like the dentist's wife.
But...if an inappropriate attraction has
been identified at the stage where only the man is even aware of it, Christian
morality does not allow the woman to take all the punishment for it. The
dentist’s wife may have feelings of wanting
to slap the dental assistant’s face, but what she needs to do about the dental assistant is help her find a different job,
preferably a better one.
That’s help, not dictate. The dentist’s wife,
and the dentist, can’t just sit around blathering. “Since we’d like to stay in
Iowa, Jennifer, why don’t you look for a job in New York, or would you prefer Seattle?”
Maybe they can mention New York and Seattle in their private prayers at home,
but when talking to the dental assistant they have to stick to actual, serious
job offers.
Wife:
“Jennifer, I know you do good work, but I’m getting paranoid about you working
with my husband. Would you consider being my assistant?”
Dentist:
“Jennifer, just for the sake of my wife’s peace of mind, I’ve recommended you
to eighteen other business owners in the neighborhood, and Dr. Smith would like
to talk to you about a position...”
If the
inappropriate attraction had gone further and become a real embarrassment, I
could see even fellow members of the church getting involved. I’ve seen that
happen. In one small-town church I used to know, gossip started when some old
hag thought two Sunday School teachers were shaking hands too enthusiastically,
and because both were active senior citizens whose spouses looked and acted much “older,” the
gossip really got out of hand. How to put out the flames of scandal before
anyone was badly burned? Call in the next parish! “Please, can you offer either
Brother Smith or Sister Jones, but not both, a more exciting opportunity to
serve...” It turned out that Mrs. Jones actually lived closer to the church in
the next parish, and she’s been making real contributions to that church for
twenty years now.
That’s what a
church is for. Kick the “irresistible” dental assistant away from the
susceptible dentist, by all means, but make sure you kick her up stairs.
