The liberal media should be embarrassed -- but they won't be. A new survey by The New York Times carries the headline "It’s Not Just Mike Pence. Americans Are Wary of Being Alone With the Opposite Sex." Pence and his wife Karen were mocked as Christian weirdos all around the Internet in March when he the Washington Post found some 2002 comments where Pence said eat alone with a woman other than his wife, or drink in public without her. It turns out they were in the mainstream -- and the media mockers were not.
Mollie Hemingway at the Federalist deftly summarized the rough media landscape, where some even compared his take to Sharia law. She said "a few of us spoke out against the hysteria."
At the Times, Claire Cain Miller sounded an exasperated note announcing these poll findings: "Men and women still don’t seem to have figured out how to work or socialize together. For many, according to a new Morning Consult poll conducted for The New York Times, it is better simply to avoid each other." That's overwrought. They can work or socialize in groups, but see some potential dangers or misunderstandings in one-on-one situations. They found:
Nearly two-thirds say people should take extra caution around members of the opposite sex at work. A majority of women, and nearly half of men, say it’s unacceptable to have dinner or drinks alone with someone of the opposite sex other than their spouse...
Further, the poll results provide societal context for Vice President Mike Pence’s comment — made in 2002 and resurfaced in a recent profile — that he doesn’t eat alone with any woman other than his wife.
In other words, the poll provides the "context" that the liberal media is out of step with the public, not the Pences. Women were more likely to favor caution than men, even though feminists feel these informal rules hinder their chances for career advancement. It's not just prudery or fear of sexual license. It's the potential for damaging sexual-harassment allegations, for a he-said/she-said battle when there are no other witnesses:
Attitudes reflect a work world shadowed by sexual harassment. In recent news about Uber and Fox News, women see cautionary tales about being alone with men.
In interviews, people described a cultural divide. Some said their social lives and careers depended on such solo meetings. Others described caution around people of the opposite sex, and some depicted the workplace as a fraught atmosphere in which they feared harassment, or being accused of it.
“When a man and a woman are left alone, outside parties can insinuate about what’s really going on,” said Christopher Mauldin, a construction worker in Rialto, Calif. “Sometimes false accusations create irreversible damages to reputations.”
Late in the piece, Miller gets to a respectful and balance take from the faith-based people:
Cindy McCafferty, 60 and Catholic, is single, but said she would do so in a future relationship. “The Sixth Commandment is you don’t commit adultery, and you don’t want to do anything that would jeopardize that,” said Ms. McCafferty, a mental health caregiver in Appleton, Wis.
Dennis Hollinger, president of the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and an expert on sex and Christian ethics, said the practice goes beyond what the Bible requires.
“All of us know our ethical and spiritual vulnerabilities, and the idea of establishing protocols to live out those commitments can be a good thing,” he said. “The negative side is this particular practice really can appear to treat women in really dehumanizing ways, almost as if they were a temptress.”
