Men wrecked women’s careers before their own
Victims derailed before they got started
The disgraceful parade of high-powered men accused of groping and harassing women across Hollywood and the media has ended some of the most powerful and successful careers in the business.
But what about the women left behind in their wake?
Within 24 hours of a Washington Post story detailing how Charlie Rose groped women he oversaw and walked naked in front of them, PBS dumped his show and CBS canned him. Rose, 75, now rightfully finds himself unemployed.
But what about all the victims of workplace sexual harassment whose careers were derailed, or never even got off to a start, because of retribution or fear stemming from the predatory behavior of men in powerful positions?
One of Rose’s victims, Kyle Godfrey-Ryan, told the Post Rose touched her breasts and upper thigh and called her late at night wanting to know details of her sex life.
Rose fantasized about watching her disrobe at his home and swimming in his pool while he watched from his bedroom, she said, and he walked in front of her naked at one of his New York City residences.
When she told a mutual friend, Rose fired her.
“It makes me a little upset to see him on television,” GodfreyRyan told the Post. She later started her own business. “Everything I experienced with journalism there made me not want to stay.”
Women’s careers in many industries have been cut short because of these predators who are finally being exposed in the wake of the accusations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.
“We need to take account of how much sexual violence, the barriers to reporting it, the reality of retaliation, and the lack of accountability negatively impacts women’s economic lives,” said Wellesley College professor Leigh Gilmore. “We might come to learn that women often interrupt career trajectories because workplaces are hostile environments.”
Sophie Dix, a former English actress who now works as a screenwriter, told the Guardian her acting career was “massively cut down” and she never got another movie role after she was sexually assaulted by Weinstein in 1990. Abby Schachner told The New York Times she didn’t pursue comedy after Louis C.K. masturbated while she was on the phone with him.
Young women often have an idealized notion of the professional field they’re heading into and no idea what the culture is like behind the scenes, said Lauren Weis, director of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at American University.
“And you’re hit full in the face with it in one way or the other,” whether you’re the victim of a sexual harasser or the friend who fears she is next, Weis said.
“All of these kind of experiences pull the rug out from under our expectations,” she said, “and can be so demoralizing that people say, ‘This isn’t what I signed up for and I want to go in a different direction in my life.’ ”