You’re fired.

So Steve Phillips has been fired for having an affair with a 22 year old intern production assistant.  The affair is said to have lasted for three weeks when Phillips ended it.  Soon thereafter, Brooke Hundley (I’m unaware if she’s a relation to former Mets catcher Todd Hundley) pretty much went off the deep end.  Anybody even remotely affiliated with sports, knows that Phillips has had affairs in the past, so what’s the lesson here?

Is it that men in general, sports in particular, and ESPN especially,  have a “frat boy” attitude about sex?  That isn’t much of a lesson, it’s a little bit of a given, so what?  Really, so what?

Will the feminists rail against the objectification of women?  Big deal.  It’s been done lots before.

Wouldn’t it be more interesting to refrain from the name calling and the vitriol and come up with a code conduct?  One that addresses these points, on a level of personal responsibility, for both parties?  I mean something more practical then reporting it to a superior.  If you’re being pushed around, it’s sometimes best to just push back.  We should provide a list of plausible suggestions, a measure for a woman to determine if a woman can handle situations herself, perhaps with humor, perhaps spilling a drink, perhaps simply turning off your phone, so he can’t continue to insist you visit him in his private suite.

It’s not my wish to cast aspersions, honestly, who goes that far off the rails over a three week liaison?  A couple of theories; perhaps the Clinton patented (feminists approved) “nuts and sluts” defense applies here, but perhaps not.  Hundley did in fact think things through.  She placed an ad for a third party to be paid to place a phone call to Mrs. Phillips, contacted the teenaged son, wrote a letter and drove to it to the family home, and then, after making all these aggressive moves, filed a restraining order against Phillips.  By the way, in most states, anyone can pretty much get a restraining order against anyone else.  They sound very important, but as they are so easy to get, there are many issued, and they really aren’t worth much.  Not in the real world, not to the people who really need protection.

This sounds to me like a wind up.  An ambitious young woman who doesn’t much care how she gets famous, so long as she does.  Even if it means trying to pass herself off and a new and improved Long Island Lolita.

Regardless, we have got to get something worked out.  It would be really nice, if grown men would simply act like grown ups.  Well it was a shot.  It would be equally nice, for we women to act like grown ups.  We have some responsibility to what happens to us.  We have a lot of tools at our disposal, we should use them more proficiently.  It’s demeaning to have to run to an authority figure with every problem.  Sure there are those times when calling in the Cavalry is the only thing to do.  But that option should be reserved for the most serious of offenses.

Steve Phillips lost a high paying, high profile job over this.  He didn’t do what Brooke Hundley did.  She’ll probably be quietly let go too.  He contract is most likely a considerably more casual one.  She’s probably hired by the day, or the week or the project.  She’ll need a new contract for each new project, ESPN has no reason to renew, her career is over.  She’ll probably write a book, hit a few talk shows, and that’s it.

Would you want her working for you?  Ladies, we as well as the men, should take a lesson.