'View' Hosts Clash Over Sexual Harassment (VIDEO)

The ladies of "The View" clashed over sexual harassment in the workplace on their Monday show.

The discussion was prompted by the latest twist in the Herman Cain harassment saga. Cain's wife Gloria spoke out for the first time in an interview with Fox News that is set to air on Monday night. She stood by the GOP presidential candidate, saying that there was no way the multiple allegations of harassment against him could be real.

After talking about the interview briefly, Whoopi Goldberg turned to a controversial op-ed by writer Katie Roiphe in Sunday's New York Times. The article posits that the behavior that is said to constitute sexual harassment is too broad and amorphous, and that "maybe it's better to live and work with colorful or inappropriate comments, with irreverence, wildness, incorrectness, ease."

The article instantly provoked a fierce backlash in the blogosphere, and Joy Behar initially seemed to have little time for Roiphe's thesis. Behar said that it served to "minimize" the very real harassment and assault that women can be subjected to.

Goldberg said that anyone who is uncomfortable with, say, dirty jokes in the workplace should "walk away" if they hear them. But Sherri Shepherd took issue with this blanket advice.

"If a person in the position of power is doing the dirty jokes, it's harder to say 'I don't like what you're saying' and walk out," she said." Goldberg objected to this. "I'm sorry, no!" she said. "That's bull ... you can walk away." Shepherd pushed back, saying that people who walked out all the time would be noticed.

Goldberg dug in. "I don't think it's hard," she said. "That's not correct behavior! If you are being harassed by somebody you need to speak up." She said that, if women didn't, "then the issue is with you, because you don't think enough of yourself to walk away."