Men in Congress Are Trying to Avoid Being Alone with Female Staffers

One male Republican staffer said that when he worked in the House, one of his bosses declined to meet privately with female aides or have them staff him at evening events at the request of his wife, who thought it was unseemly. “There was never any doubt about the staffers and their behavior, or the member and [his] behavior,” the staffer said. But his boss’s wife worried what others would think, particularly back home in his Southern congressional district.

As a result of the informal policy, the male staffer remembers being asked to accompany his boss to an evening reception with a group of defense contractors, even though he was much more junior than the female staffer who covered the issue. “I’d say, ‘she has more experience, this isn’t my area.’ They’d still say, ‘we need you to staff him tonight,’” he said.

Another male aide who works for a Senate Republican said he was previously in an office where women weren’t allowed to drive the boss around or staff him at evening events. For his colleagues, it became clear that if they valued their careers, “they would have to go somewhere else at some point,” he said.

Surely it would be easier to just not have an affair with your female staffers, right, members of Congress? Rather than surround yourselves with a protective phalanx of dicks and shrink away from interacting with the women you hired?

John F. Kennedy, then a Congressman, sitting on Capitol Hill in 1946. Image via AP.