Amazing conclusion ... And here I thought it was a victory for proponents of a National "Have Your Employees Blow You" week on the business calendar ... Could Clinton Saga Help Women? By MICHELLE BOORSTEIN .c The Associated Press With the closing credits starting to roll on the Clinton-Jones-Lewinsky drama, many Americans and sexual harassment experts have an unexpected prediction -- that women in the workplace will benefit from the whole experience. The public is more aware now of sexual politics and sexual harassment than ever before. And the women -- Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky -- were seen as decision-makers, regardless of how one viewed their decisions. ``It doesn't help women to be viewed as fragile creatures who have to be protected. We had all that protection in the last century and it protected women out of a lot of really good jobs,'' said Professor Barbara Gutek, an expert on sexual harassment at the University of Arizona. ``I think bringing up discussions having to do with unequal power and what consent means have to be good.'' Most experts agree, however, that the experience has left more questions than answers. Will women be discouraged by Jones' harassment lawsuit being dismissed? Will the Clinton-Lewinsky relationship open the door to more romances between bosses and their subordinates? Have Americans lost the distinction between offensive behavior and harassment? Or do they know the difference for the first time? ``This whole thing definitely had an impact, but it's hard to figure out what it is,'' said Paul Tobias, chairman of the National Employee Rights Institute in Cincinnati. Jones sued Clinton for sexual harassment in 1994, claiming he propositioned her when he was Arkansas governor and she was a state worker. Her lawsuit was dismissed, but while seeking an appeal she settled with Clinton for $850,000. An intern in the White House, Lewinsky denied her affair with Clinton in a deposition for the Jones suit but then admitted it to prosecutor Ken Starr. Margie Harris, a Houston attorney, says people whose complaints don't rise to the standard of harassment come to her citing the settlement Jones won from Clinton. ``People say, `What I suffered was worse,''' she said. ``But the president's case isn't much like reality.'' That, says University of California-Berkeley law professor Marina Hsieh, is because of politics. ``This is a case with a weak legal theory that got as far as it did because a lot of people with a lot of money with political motivation took it forward,'' she said. ``I think everyone looks at the Jones case and says it's all political.'' Caught in the political tides were traditional feminists' groups, most of which came down against Jones on the side of Clinton. And when the Clinton- Lewinsky relationship was revealed, some feminists suggested the young woman was fantasizing the relationship. ``They were reluctant to take Paula Jones' side because her case was financed by a `right-wing conspiracy,' so the traditional allies of Jones didn't appear,'' said Tobias. ``I think that was a setback for the women's groups.'' Polls taken during the yearlong Lewinsky saga suggest most Americans don't believe Lewinsky was sexually harassed, while they were more divided on whether Jones was harassed. Among the results: About three-quarters of those questioned in a Time/CNN poll done last March said the Lewinsky-Clinton relationship would not constitute sexual harassment if ``she willingly consented to have sex.'' About one out of five said it still would be harassment. Asked in an April poll for Newsweek magazine if the judge's decision to throw out the Jones lawsuit sends the message that ``sexual harassment laws are weak and allow men to get away with behavior that is harmful to women,'' just over half said no, while four out of 10 said yes. Asked if women are more or less likely to report sexual harassment after ``seeing what has happened to Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky,'' just over half said they were more likely to report it. About a quarter said they were less likely, and 11 percent said there was no difference in a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll done in November. Americans sharply differ over whether it is even possible for a clerical worker like Jones or a 22-year-old intern like Lewinsky to consent to a relationship with someone in such a position of power. ``There's no way you could know anything about this and not think that (power abuse) was an issue in the Lewinsky case, but the whole thing with that underwear, that wiped it out,'' said Dawn Bennett-Alexander, an associate professor of employment law at the University of Georgia. Lewinsky flashed the president a peek at the top of her thong panties during one of their first discussions. ``Those thongs saved him from the allegation that he was trying to use his power in some way,'' she said.
