Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Culture of Harassment

NPR review Hulu's adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale ends with this:
In a country where sexual harassment scandals regularly land on the front page, the patriarchy of The Handmaid's Tale doesn't feel so far-fetched, which is the most horrific thing about it.

In light of the ousting of Bill O'Reilly from Fox News over sexual harassmentAlisyn Camerota of CNN recently talked about the harassment culture at Fox News. So three questions:

- Do news women have any responsibility to expose the news that they are subject to sexual harassment?

- Some these women at Fox News - Megan Kelly, Gretchen Carlson, Alisyn Camerota - were at the top of their careers at the time. Yet they did not feel they could safely challenge the harassment culture of Fox News. What about that culture made it so irresistible? 

- If women who are at or near the top of the power structure like the Fox News women can't challenge/expose sexual harassment, what tools do women with less power have to counter/defend from harassment?

Sexual harassment is also a mechanism of economic division - the divide and conquer strategy by demeaning women to a lesser status. United we stand, divided we fall.

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