Opinion: Years ago she was propositioned by her academic mentor. She still questions her accomplishments

To the editor: Years ago, less than a week after earning my doctorate at a well-known university in Southern California, my advisor called to invite me to lunch in Malibu to congratulate me.

Turned out, he really wanted to lure me to a romantic weekend getaway in Santa Barbara (even though we both were married to other people). It was a bit awkward, but I deftly declined his offer.

Still, as I drove home that day, I wondered if he had really valued my scholarship as opposed to wanting the “freedom” to seduce me. Did he play by the rules? Yes. But to this day, I continue to doubt the value of my academic accomplishments.

This probably doesn’t qualify as the same kind of harassment the California political women have exposed (“Female lawmakers, staffers and lobbyists speak out on ‘pervasive’ harassment in California’s Capitol,” Oct. 17), but it had a long-lasting result on my sense of being worthy to contribute knowledge to my academic specialty.

Kathy Landis, Laguna Woods

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To the editor: I appreciate the coverage you are giving the Harvey Weinstein story and the issue of sexual harassment and assault. But you need to understand that by using photographs of him to accompany the stories, you are inadvertently recreating some of the conditions of his bullying and assaultive behavior.

The stories from victims make clear that he used his physical size to intimidate his employees and others and to be the immovable object in his allegedly assaultive encounters with women, instilling fear and preventing them from getting away. By running these photographs, you are continuing to showcase him as a powerful and persistent presence in Los Angeles even as your reportage exposes his malignant and cowardly deeds.

As a woman among many, many others who has had her own experiences with sexual harassment, it is very difficult to look at these photographs knowing that, when they were taken, Weinstein was in full flight with his disgusting behavior. Believe me, we all know what he looks like by now, and we don’t need to see him anymore.

Susan Painter, Venice

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To the editor: Weinstein and President Trump came off the same production line — they have the same history of bullying and allegedly harassing women, and they both have totally inflated egos.

But one goes down in flames, and the other becomes president of the United States. Go figure.

Erika Blos, Santa Barbara

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