‘I was young and looked up to this person’
It started as a chain of text messages among women complaining about sexism in California’s Capitol, then snowballed into a searing open letter about a culture of sexual harassment in Sacramento, released in mid-October. The letter was originally signed b
Jessica Yas Barker Director of corporate relations for Ovation, an independent television network
Jessica Yas Barker’s stories go as far back as her teenage years, when as a 17-year-old she interned for her first campaign in L.A.
“The person who was running a campaign — the campaign manager at the time — was significantly older and told me that we should go out for my 18th birthday. I assumed that meant a group of people from the office,” she said. “To be fair, I was young and looked up to this person and was flattered by the offer and the attention. In retrospect, I realize it was not appropriate.”
She got to his house and realized there were no other colleagues there. He handed her another woman’s ID — she was still too young to get into bars.
She felt flattered, but unsure of how to handle the situation.
“I did not drink anything. I was really nervous. He had a few drinks, and I think there was a bit of an irritation on his part that I wasn’t drinking.”
She was uneasy as he drove them back to his place, unused to being in a car with someone who had been drinking. She said they went inside his apartment, which was “the point at which he screwed up the courage to put the moves on me.”
“He grabbed me by both of my shoulders and tried to kiss me a couple times. I told him I had a boyfriend, which seems to be the typical excuse for women, rather than just saying no.
“When it was clear he didn’t want me there unless it turned sexual, I left.”
She kept in touch with him over the years, knowing he would be an important contact as she built her career in politics. She saw him as a mentor.
But one night, she canceled dinner plans with him, explaining she was cashstrapped. He replied that she should have him over instead for ramen in her apartment, she said.
“Even though I thought I had handled the situation over the years fairly well, it kind of all came crashing down on me when I realized he was absolutely done, in his eyes, with playing games with me. He didn’t want to be my friend, didn’t want to be my mentor. Something short of a sexual relationship wasn’t interesting to him.”
Later, she applied for a job in an elected official’s office. She introduced herself to the chief of staff at an event a week before her interview. He complained that their morning appointment got in the way of his gym routine to work on various muscle groups.
“This is before I even interviewed for the position, which just goes to show — I should’ve walked away from this position before even interviewing for it.
“After getting the job, the next year and a half working for him was a constant barrage of inappropriate comments and self-aggrandizing,” she said. “This person would constantly talk down to women in the office — whether walking into a conference room where a group of women were sitting and asking, ‘How’s that glass ceiling working out for you?’ to calling me ‘Ellen DeGeneres’ for wearing pants instead of dresses.”
At professional events, with no alcohol present, he would explicitly talk about sex, she said.
“He loved being able to point out women in the room whom he had sex with. He was bragging about women whom he had sex with or the women he perceived to desire him.… He would talk about his sexual exploits.”
Barker said she decided to speak out after hearing stories from other women who have worked in politics in Los Angeles and Sacramento. She said she wanted to add her voice “so people know that they’re not alone.”
“We’re doing this because we want to change the professional culture that women have to work in in politics. We’re not just coming out because it’s cathartic. There’s a goal here.”
— Melanie Mason
Natalie LeBlanc Political consultant and managing director, the Pivot Group
Natalie LeBlanc has been harassed and discriminated against by men “probably her whole career,” she said.
There was a time a man thrust his hand down her pants at a political fundraiser. Another time, she was attending an event at a hotel when a consultant pushed her up against an elevator wall and propositioned her, she said.
She also remembers the time she pitched a client at an office meeting.
“He spent the first half of the meeting not listening to what I was saying and staring down my dress.” LeBlanc said. “At the end of the meeting, he ran his hand down my leg.
“I have been called a staffer or an intern by male members of the Legislature, by lobbyists, by consultants. I have been working for 20 years; I’m almost 40. To be called or assumed to be an intern is really discouraging.”
In politics, there’s “such a disproportionate amount of power consolidated with men. It just makes the opposite sex vulnerable.”
— Dakota Smith