Citing Paris prosecutors, Reuters and other news outlets are reporting that the French movie director Christophe Ruggia was arrested and taken into custody for questioning today over allegations he sexually assaulted a teen girl who was cast in one of his films nearly two decades ago. Read the rest
A woman who works as an associate producer on the long-running CBS television show “60 Minutes” today filed a lawsuit that claims she experienced gender discrimination at the TV network. Cassandra Vinograd, who is based in London, says she was retaliated against by CBS after complaining about inappropriate conduct by her boss. Read the rest
“I still can't talk about what happened to me because of a non-disclosure agreement,” says Gretchen Carlson. Read the rest
On Tuesday, McDonald’s Corporation was sued by a group of workers in the state of Michigan who say the global fast-food chain allows pervasive sexual harassment to run rampant at its restaurant locations. Read the rest
'League of Legends' developers and others at Riot Games walked out of work en masse on Monday, protesting the company's use of forced arbitration to settle sexual harassment lawsuits. Read the rest
Alphabet and Google co-founder Larry Page did not ask his company's board of directors for approval before personally approving a $150 million dollar stock grant to disgraced Android executive Andy Rubin, despite the sexual harassment allegations that led to Rubin's ouster. These are the claims in an investor lawsuit, which says the company covered up the sexual misconduct of Rubin and others. Read the rest
More than 200 engineers at Google are said to be preparing a 'women's walk', in which people walk out of work, after claims that the company protected sexual harasser executives, and offered them generous payouts. Read the rest
Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, and Lily Tomlin are going to be back on the job in a sequel to their 1980 hit comedy 9 to 5, as confirmed by Fonda.
“My role is as an executive producer, and I’m working with the writers, with Lily, and talking to the writers,” Fonda told reporters at the Television Critics Association panel for her new HBO documentary, Jane Fonda in Five Acts. “Right now, Dolly, Lily and I are all intending to be in it.”
The film's original screenwriter Patricia Resnick will be co-writing the script with Rashida Jones (Parks and Recreation) under Fonda's executive production.
Bust:
...They hope to make a story that tackles the work issues of 2018, including the wage gap, sexual harassment in the workplace, shifting technology, and outsourcing.
Dolly Parton also weighed in on on the storyline in a recent interview with ABC's Nightline, stating that with the current conversations around unequal pay and sexual harassment in the workplace, a sequel makes sense, and feels right to her and the other stars in a way it hadn’t before.
Can't. wait.
Yeah, 'Monster' sounds about right. Five women are suing beverage maker Monster Energy over a workplace culture where discrimination and sexually abusive behavior by male executives proliferated with impunity. Read the rest
Variety is reporting that the desk recently-fired TODAY anchor Matt Lauer's desk was rigged with a special button:
His office was in a secluded space, and he had a button under his desk that allowed him to lock his door from the inside without getting up. This afforded him the assurance of privacy. It allowed him to welcome female employees and initiate inappropriate contact while knowing nobody could walk in on him, according to two women who were sexually harassed by Lauer.
The detailed article also reports that Lauer was "fixated on women, especially their bodies and looks," according to 10 current and former employees:
He was known for making lewd comments verbally or over text messages. He once made a suggestive reference to a colleague’s performance in bed and compared it to how she was able to complete her job, according to witnesses to the exchange. For Lauer, work and sex were intertwined.
“There were a lot of consensual relationships, but that’s still a problem because of the power he held,” says a former producer who knew first-hand of these encounters. “He couldn’t sleep around town with celebrities or on the road with random people, because he’s Matt Lauer and he’s married. So he’d have to do it within his stable, where he exerted power, and he knew people wouldn’t ever complain.”
Matt Lauer Accused of Sexual Harassment by Multiple Women (EXCLUSIVE)
screenshot via TODAY
Previously: NBC fires Matt Lauer over "inappropriate sexual behavior" Read the rest
News came out this morning that NBC has fired Matt Lauer over "inappropriate sexual behavior." NBC News chairman Andrew Lack says, "While it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over twenty years he’s been at NBC News, we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.”
You can bet it's not an isolated event. Here is a video from 2012 that shows Katie Couric telling Andy Cohen that Lauer's most annoying habit is that he "pinches me on the ass a lot."
Image: Joella Marano Read the rest
Al Franken, Democratic senator from Minnesota and a former comedian, admitted groping radio host Leeann Tweeden who wrote of her experience at his hands for 790 KABC. He apologized to Tweeden and invited the Senate to place him under investigation, but claimed no recollection of her more serious claim: that he forced a kiss on her during rehearsals for the 2006 USO Tour performance. Read the rest
I met Jackie Fox of the Runaways in 2015 after I wrote an article on Boing Boing in response to her rape disclosure and the treatment it was getting in the press. Jackie was drugged and raped in front of a large group of people at a party. Jason Cherkis, an investigative reporter for Huffington Post, wrote an exhaustively researched piece about the rape, interviewed many witnesses, and outlined the complex reasons Jackie was coming forward 40 years later. Her story was not only rock solid--she had witnesses. Still, her former bandmate, Joan Jett, put out a statement essentially calling Jackie's rape part of a "bizarre relationship."
I was angry watching the public tide turn against Jackie after Joan's dismissive statement was released, especially as a fellow assault survivor. Around the same time, more Cosby women were coming forward, and I was disgusted with the default reaction of seeing women doubted, disparaged, and denigrated. I wrote the piece, Neil Gaiman tweeted it out, and people took note. And so, my friendship with Jackie Fox began. It was coincidental that I was also the bassist in an all-female band, Babes in Toyland, but it gave us a natural camaraderie.
So when Jackie invited me to go to the recent #MeTooMarch in Hollywood, I was honored to join her. The #MeToo movement had sprung up amid the Weinstein scandal after actress Alyssa Milano encouraged others to share their sexual abuse, assault, and harassment experiences with the hashtag #MeToo, and rightly credited Tarana Burke of Just BE Inc., Read the rest
Jacques Nasser, a director of 21st Century Fox, testified in a proceeding that Bill O'Reilly's contract had a provision stipulating that “could not be dismissed on the basis of an allegation unless that allegation was proved in court.”
From WaPo:
As part of the review, Jacques Nasser, a director of 21st Century Fox, gave testimony on the company’s inner workings.
And what astonishing workings: As Nasser told the story, there was a quick reaction to the accusations against former Fox News chief Roger Ailes, who was sued by former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson in July 2016. After a review of Ailes’s conduct, he was quickly ousted.
Such a lightning response, however, wasn’t possible in the case of O’Reilly, Nasser told CMA, because of O’Reilly’s contract. Requiring sexual-harassment allegations to be proved in a court of law before dismissing the accused party — that’s a steep requirement. Analyses have shown that well above 90 percent of all civil cases are settled or dismissed before they reach a trial. Not only that, but a wealthy man like O’Reilly can use his assets to ensure that he’d never face a proven claim of sexual harassment.
“He would never let a claim go to trial where he would even have the slightest chance of losing,” says Lisa Banks, a partner at the employment law firm Katz, Marshall & Banks.
It sounds similar to Harvey Weinstein's contract, which stipulated that "the board of his film company could not terminate his employment over sexual harassment claims if he paid off women to silence them – as long as he paid out the money himself, according to reports." Read the rest
Eight current or former "House of Cards" employees claim they were sexually harassed and/or physically sexually assaulted by Kevin Spacey. Read the rest
