Since the St. Paul police chief’s sexual harassment claims against Mayor Kaohly Her surfaced last summer, I’ve had private and public discussions about the role of gender.

Initially, I warned against a rush to judgment. I wanted to see the findings from a St. Cloud law firm’s independent investigation into the claims by Chief Axel Henry.

The full report, with redactions, is now available. It substantiated allegations of inappropriate workplace behavior by the mayor. Raunchy jokes. Sexually suggestive memes, including the infamous “Wiener Wednesday” text. Photoshopping the heads of male police officers onto the greased-up bodies of scantily clad UFC fighters and bodybuilders. Uncomfortable locker-room conversations about breasts with female employees. Touching Henry on the leg, twice, during a city meeting.

The fallout from this will continue, as Henry has a lawsuit pending against the mayor and a bombastic lawyer, former Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Madel, who is calling for Her’s ouster. (Not likely.)

The pending lawsuit prevents the mayor from talking about the situation and it presents a tough dynamic for St. Paul City Hall, with the two highest-profile city leaders not speaking directly. This tension comes as the mayor is trying to bring the city out from under a whopping $26 million hole in its 2027 city budget.

I doubt this legal report will sway opinions on either side of the Her-Henry divide. I don’t dispute that some of Her’s behavior was inappropriate regardless of whether she was trying to match the culture at the department to fit in, as she claimed.

But the more serious allegations were left unsubstantiated, including the notion that she hit on the chief at a bar and that she made sexual noises while working out in the police gym.

Henry’s lawyer would have us believe that the mayor’s behavior was so far out of bounds that it tainted the pristine culture of the police department. As if. Remember that the police were eating hot dogs outside the chief’s office and calling it “Weiner Wednesday” before this mayor showed up.

What’s telling is that there’s been no tsunami of complaints against the mayor. To the contrary, after my previous column ran, I privately heard from many who support the mayor and were unperturbed by Henry’s allegations.

Others pushed back on my support for the mayor with some variation of: “What if the genders were reversed? What if the mayor were a man and the chief was a woman? You’d be screaming for his head.”

The investigative report also raises the prospect of flipping the genders. Of the “Wiener Wednesday” meme, the report stated: “Had a male mayor sent this type of text to two younger, female officers, there would be no question about the inappropriateness of the behavior.”

Fair enough, but flipping the genders ignores the reality of the male-dominated police culture; the systemic disadvantages that women have faced; and how every woman organizes her life in such a fashion that she doesn’t fall prey to a man who would harm her.

If we’re going to flip the genders, let’s start in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence. The second paragraph would state that “all women are created equal.”

Men would not enjoy such equal standing, nor would they have the right to vote. It would have taken men 144 years of suffrage to gain that right in 1920.

In 1972, men’s rights would have been boosted by Title IX, which banned sex-based discrimination at institutions receiving federal funding. As a result, new opportunities would slowly open up to men in sports and academia.

In 1973, men would gain control over reproductive decisions with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade guaranteeing a right to abortion. (But a majority-female Supreme Court would overturn that ruling and limit men’s options a half-century later.)

If the genders were reversed, this country’s 45 presidents would all be women. The country’s highest courts and executive offices would be run by women credibly accused of sexually assaulting men.

If the genders were reversed, men working in this country would earn 80% of what women make. Female CEOs would vastly outnumber men in Fortune 500 companies. The NBA would be the MNBA, the Men’s National Basketball Association.

Let’s talk about what gender reversal would mean regarding locker-room conversations. The report found it likely that Her had engaged in inappropriate and offensive conversation there with two female colleagues.

We don’t have to guess how the male version of such talk is viewed. We can revisit the audio leaked in October 2016 of President Donald Trump crudely bragging to a television personality that being a star means a man can “do anything” to a woman, including, “grab them by the [genitals].” A month later, Trump was elected to the White House.

Perhaps the biggest change if the genders were reversed is that men would have to orient their lives to stay safe from women. Men would fear walking alone in and staying out after dark.

Let’s also imagine what could happen to a male college student who passed out drunk and drugged while visiting a friend at a sorority house.

Would he be sexually assaulted by a succession of predatory sorority sisters? When he reported the incident to prosecutors would his rape allegations be dismissed as consensual?

Let’s get real. If a man passed out in a sorority house, he’d wake up fully clothed with a blanket over him, a pillow under his head and a glass of water at his side.

It’s hard to read the report on Mayor Her without becoming enraged over the immeasurably worse experiences every woman has endured involving unwelcome attention from men.

What if women sued for every catcall or unwanted touch? I’m sure no one would accuse her of overreacting, right?

As Sen. Erin Maye-Quade, DFL-Apple Valley, said, “If people are upset about what’s happening between the mayor and the chief of police, boy do I have some other stories for them.”

Mayor Her made costly mistakes in her first months in office that will shadow her tenure. In her transition to the city’s chief executive, she’s learned painful lessons, but she shouldn’t be the only one learning from this.

Men should read the full report; they have as much, if not more, to learn than the mayor.

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