94% HOW BAD IS HOLLYWOOD’S ‘ME TOO’ PROBLEM?
THIS BAD: A USA TODAY exclusive survey, focused on the entertainment industry, has found that almost every one of hundreds of women questioned — a startling 94% — say they have experienced some form of sexual harassment or assault in their careers in Tinseltown.
For the first time, the survey provides some data to help clarify an increasingly ugly picture of Hollywood workplace harassment that women — many of them A-listers such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Salma Hayek — say they have to endure in order to be in showbiz.
The misconduct can range from unwanted sexual comments and groping to demanding that women disrobe at an audition with no warning to forcing them to do something sexual in return for a role or
advancement.
The fall of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein in October unleashed a hurricane of furious women accusing scores of industry figures of predatory behavior. But there were no hard data on the extent of the problem specifically focused on Hollywood.
Working with the Creative Coalition, Women in Film and Television and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, USA TODAY reached out to women who work as producers, actors, writers, directors, editors and so on. A total of 843 women volunteered to answer the survey about their experiences with sexual misconduct.
The results were eye-opening: Besides the 94% figure, more than one-fifth of respondents (21%) said they were forced to do something sexual at least once. Only one in four women reported their experiences to anyone because of fear of personal or professional backlash.
And nearly three decades after the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas Supreme Court hearings in 1991 ignited a national discussion on workplace sexual harassment, more than one-third of the women surveyed weren’t even sure that what happened to them was sexual harassment.
The survey has limitations: It used a self-selected sample of respondents, so it is not scientifically representative of the entire industry.
But the data appear plausible for an industry where the “casting couch” is considered “normal,” says Anita Raj, director of the Center for Gender Equity and Health at the University of California-San Diego’s medical school, which studies the influence of sexual harassment on women’s emotional, mental and physical health.
“It (94%) is high, but it does not seem shocking,” Raj says. “It says this is ubiquitous in Hollywood.”