Male privilege, sexual misconduct, and the fall of a cleft icon.

An op ed piece in Friday’s Washington Post helped make up my mind re former congressman Trent Franks (R-Ariz.). The op ed author described a classic case of male privilege in action. The writer Melissa Richmond* is currently vice president of Running Start, an organization that encourages women to run for political office.

Richmond wrote that she thought she’d lost out on a career in politics after an encounter with Rep. Franks eight years ago. In her own words:

I’ve always been proud of the ways I’m independent. So when a middle-aged man stopped me in a parking garage and asked me to jump-start his car several years ago, I was happy to help. As we worked to get his car running, we talked. I mentioned I was a first-year law school student who had worked in politics. He said he was impressed that I had jumper cables (he didn’t) and that I knew how to use them. He also said he was a member of Congress and asked me to follow up with him if I wanted a summer internship.

She did follow up, and Franks’ senior staff interviewed her and offered her an internship. Several weeks went by. Then something unusual happened.

The congressman called me on my cellphone — from his cellphone — late on a Sunday night. He mentioned that his family wasn’t home and asked me whether I could come over that night for a “final one-on-one interview” with him. I was stunned. Senior members of his staff had interviewed me weeks before and offered me the position. After speaking with my family, I called the congressman back and told him I didn’t feel comfortable going to his house. In that case, he told me, the internship offer was rescinded.

Bust shot of youngish Franks' accuser, Melissa Richmond.
Franks’ accuser, Ms.Richmond

Richmond’s op ed piece sealed the deal for me. The deal being the precipitous fall from grace of a one-time hero of mine. You see, Franks** had overcome a cleft lip and palate to become a well-known four-term congressman. For this reason, his conservatism (esp his anti-abortion stance) didn’t bother me the way such beliefs usually do.*** Likewise, Jesse Jackson’s cleft lip makes him a hero to me of sorts even tho I disagree with a lot of his politics.

Franks’ resignation from Congress last week —in addition to the resignations of John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.)—came as sexual harassment allegations have engulfed Capitol Hill. Ms. Richmond’s story of Franks exercise of male privilege was the last straw. It saddened me to admit that a hero had fallen.

From cleft lip hero to male privilege villain.

There are far too few celebrity cleft lip and palate heroes in the world to lose one suddenly and for behavior which most should be able to control.

On the surface, it looks like Franks succumbed to the entitlement political power oft bestows. This, of course was an expression of one of the worst forms of traditional male privilege—licentiousness. (He grew up in the ’70s).

As for other factors to explain his sexual adventurism, I don’t know enough about Franks’ early years struggling with cleft surgeries and bullying. It IS possible that—as a result of his clefts— he didn’t have normal dating and mating experiences growing up. He then sought to “compensate” later in life—perhaps by asserting an archaic version of male privilege which is now inappropriate and oft illegal.

Equally possible, he was exposed early in life to conservative teachings about abstaining from sex. Then later on in middle age, he felt he hadn’t “sowed his oats” as a young man.

Which brings us to the reason many have been confused about the “surrogate mother” accusations. When the first surrogacy accusations*** and denials of Franks hit the media, some wondered if—in some weird way—he was trying to avoid passing his clefts to the child he wanted.

Franks claims he and his wife wanted another child to join their surrogated twins. In their attempt to have a sibling for their twins, Franks said in an initial apology, he “became insensitive as to how the discussion of such an intensely personal topic might affect others.”

Heinrichs cast Franks’ alleged conversations with female staffers regarding surrogacy as part of his regard for “the dignity of life” as a pro-life member of Congress. She also distinguished Franks’ behavior from other politicians accused of “legitimate sexual abuse.”Eventual disgust with Franks.

Eventual disgust with Franks.

When further details around the surrogacy allegations surfaced, including a substantiated report that Franks had offered an aide $5 million to carry his child, the jig was up. The House Ethics Committee decided to investigate whether Franks “engaged in conduct that constitutes sexual harassment and/or retaliation for opposing sexual harassment.”

How to solve male privilege expressed as sex harrassment?

Solutions are beyond the scope of this blog post. But this Washington Post article,”The one best idea for ending sexual harassment,” is worth reading. It describes ideas for for mitigating sex misconduct in several different institutions besides Congress: including Corporations, the Military, Hospitals, Universities, Newsrooms, and Churches.

Let me know your ideas as to how to reduce the amount of sexual misconduct in various workplaces.

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*According to her organization, Melissa graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in political science, the George Washington University Law School, and the Women’s Campaign School at Yale.

**As one of the most socially conservative members of the House., Franks founded the Arizona Family Research Institute, a nonprofit associated with Focus on the Family, a socially conservative religious organization. In 2013, he came under harsh criticism for remarking that “the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low” during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

Before coming to Washington, Franks, a multimillionaire former oil business owner, served one term in the Arizona House of Representatives in the mid-1980s. He also ran the Family Research Institute and worked as the director of the Arizona Governor’s Office for Children.

*** Allegedly Franks approached two female staffers about acting as a potential surrogate for him and his wife, who has struggled with fertility issues for years. But the aides were concerned that Franks was asking to have sexual relations with them. It was not clear to the women whether he was asking about impregnating the women through sexual intercourse or in vitro fertilization. Franks opposes abortion rights as well as procedures that discard embryos.

To learn about CLEFT HEART: Chasing Normal, click the Amazon or Barnes & Noble buttons in the margins. Or click the image of the book cover. My coming-of-age memoir has intertwining love stories, mystery, tragedy, and triumph.

Male privilege, sex, and the fall of a cleft icon.

How to solve male privilege expressed as sex harrassment?

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