I was complicit in harassment of young women in TV, says Phillips
FORMER POLITICIAN and broadcaster Trevor Phillips has said he was “complicit” in workplace harassment of young women.
The former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who has worked for the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4, said that such behaviour was commonplace in the world of television.
Phillips admitted that he was guilty of doing little to prevent the targeting of young women by those who might “pay our mortgages”.
Speaking on a panel discussing diversity at the Royal Television Society conference in London, he said that he believes little has changed.
Phillips said: “After the (Harvey) Weinstein thing, this has been an issue for everyone in the entertainment industry.
“When I was active in television, we would get a new young person, usually a young woman, in the office and say the usual: ‘There’s the coffee machine, there’s the photocopier, there’s your desk’,’ all that sort of stuff.
“But then we’d say: ‘Hold on, everybody here is very nice, but try not to get into a lift with Pete. He’s a brilliant guy, he pays all our mortgages, but I think he’s a little bit weird.’
“That was us dealing with harassment. The truth is, we were complicit. We’d like to say it has changed. But it hasn’t.”
Phillips asked the panel including head of inclusion at Barclays, Mark McLane, what could be done to change the situation.
McLane said: “You have to speak up and say it’s not right. Your allowing things to happen is acceptance. That sends the message that it is OK.”
The panel also discussed where to spend money to improve diversity in the media.
Phillips, who chairs the equality assessment initiative the National Equality Standard, said that television risks becoming a stale and limited medium without greater diversity.