Janice Fiamengo on Kamala Harris

From Yes, Kamala Harris Slept with a Powerful Man for Political Advancement:

Such is a common mode of operation for ambitious young women looking to jump the queue to career gain and influence. It deserves to be seen as the feminine side of sexual harassment and as an equally toxic, if more insidious, form of sexual discrimination.
 
It is almost inconceivable that Harris would have been appointed to the two board positions on her own merits. She moved ahead of better qualified and more worthy candidates, male and female, because she was involved with Brown. It’s also likely that her successful bid to become district attorney of San Francisco was in large part due to Brown’s influence in the city.
 
Unlike in instances of sexual harassment, there is not usually a complainant in cases of sexual exploitation. It is possible that both Harris and Brown look back on their affair with satisfaction.
 
But that doesn’t mean that their conduct was victimless. It was an abuse of power, and it should concern those who value merit and common fairness. Less attractive and more scrupulous people, those with integrity who might have earned the positions Harris bagged, never had a chance to compete for them on anything like a level playing field.
 
Furthermore, the incidents speak to Harris’s ruthlessness, lack of genuine ability, and moral corruptibility. Unlike in the case of Trump, whose “grab them by the pussy” comment never indicated sexual assault of women (quite the opposite—he was making the point that an extraordinary number of women are willingly bedazzled by powerful men), Harris spent years choosing to trade her body for political profit.
 
If men are to be harshly condemned for exploiting their power for sexual access—supposedly because it hurts all women and warps public culture—then why are women held guiltless when they exploit their sexual power for political and other access? Do their actions not also corrupt public culture, breeding favoritism, resentment, mistrust, apathy, and rancor?

She’s got a point.

8 thoughts on “Janice Fiamengo on Kamala Harris”

  1. Certainly Willie Brown looks back on Kamala’s services with satisfaction. I’ve seen an interview where he was talking about it, saying “I loved me and she loved me.” Kamala’s view is kept safely private. The only person I feel any sympathy for is Emhoff. I cannot imagine being her “husband” in public.

    I think his influence pushed her through her Senate bid, after which her inability to play politics crashed her ambitions. Only Biden’s DEI push put her in a presidential position. Only the isolation game, where her public image is carefully curated by keeping her on-teleprompter can keep her in the race. When Kamala talks impromptu, people turn away.

  2. It’s telling that Democrats and the media refuse to acknowledge the story. Of course if it was a Republican woman who did this, she would be the center of a media firestorm.

    To add to Janice’s critique, one reason that Kamala gets a pass on this is confusion on the part of the radical feminists. One on hand they see Willie Brown exploiting his power for sex which they condemn, but on the other hand they see Kamala also using her sexual influence to gain power which they support.

  3. *le sigh deep* As a one-time small “f” feminist, I’ve always been as resentful as hell about women who got ahead by marrying well, rather than on their own talent and merits. It’s the main reason I got very angry the first time Her Inevitableness, the Dowager Duchess of Chappaqua ran for high office just because she had been married to a previous president. “She’s a woman!” they said. “You’re a woman — so you OUGHT to vote for her … because she’s a woman…”
    No. Her only qualification for higher office was being married to a politically powerful man. That’s bad enough. Being told to vote for a woman who only (insert indelicate expression here) a politically powerful man is even more insulting.

  4. As the man said; we’ve established what Kamala is, the only question is price. Of course, her services didn’t cost Willy more than a couple of phone calls. It’s the tax payers that ponied up the dosh. She isn’t a cheap whore.

    I’m pretty sure that she owes her advancement neither to sleeping or to intellectual acumen.

  5. Exactly! Ditto Monica Lewinsky. An intern jumped the queue to land in a higher-than-entry-level job at the Pentagon based on her performance on the Oval Office casting couch. How many fatter, uglier, older, male-er but more competent workers were turned away? How many veterans? How many GS-7 Pentagon employees had to wait another year for a promotion? The girl discriminated on is only the most visible of those affected by sexual discrimination.

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