Great Unknown Women...

As news of Cesar Chavez's crimes came to light this week I was reminded of something I read about Isaac Asimov.

Let me backup, I meant to say crimes. Newspaper stories will say misdeeds or sexual scandals, but what he did was a crime. Multiple crimes. He raped Dolores Huerta. He did the same to other women. And to girls. He was not a good man to say the least. But to describe it accurately he committed crimes.

So that brings me back to what I read about Isaac Asimov. He also was not a good guy. I don't think he was a full on rapist but he was a serial groper. Sexual assault. That's what groping someone is, sexaul assault. So Asimov was a serial sexual assaulter. It was known, it was tolerated because "it was a different time" and he was a "great man."

And that's what Dolores Huerta said about why she didn't report Chavez, and hid her pregnancies. He was a "great man" and the face of the movement and she worried that it would do too much damage to the farm workers movement if she spoke out.

Asimov did a lot of his groping at Science Fiction conventions. And a lot of women didn't go back because of it. They stopped being fans, and they stopped writing science fiction. It was not a safe place for them and because there was no way to make it a safe place for them they just left. We have no idea what books they would have written if they hadn't left. We have no idea what ideas we missed out on because they left.

There always seems to be a worry about ruining the career or reputation of the man but we rarely consider what we've lost from the women. Remember the kid who raped the girl behind the dumpster and the judge said he didn't want to ruin his life for a few minutes of bad behavior? He got a 6 month sentence and only served 3 with probation for a few years.

The judge didn't want to ruin his life for a little thing like raping someone.

Do you think he ever considered the woman that was raped? What her life would be like? Of course not, because she's just the woman in his story. But if you want to actually read her story, HER story, her name is Chanel Miller and she wrote a book about the whole thing.

But I wonder now, I think now, about what we've lost over the years from women who were groped, abused, raped, who never told their stories. Who never were able to be in the field they wanted to. Who had to see their rapists lauded as heros. Or as good guys who just had a little rapey moment.

That's the problem with defending the "Great Men" you lose the women who could have been great. And we'll never know exactly what has been lost.

Keep that in mind the next time someone asks you to be quiet because he's a good guy, a great man, the face of a movement, too important to be truthful about. Know that he's not. He's a criminal who is silencing the potential greatness of others.

And let's change all of the schools, roads, and days as soon as possible.

Dolores Huerta Blvd sounds good to me.