There isn't a woman alive who hasn't at some point felt sexually harassed. From comments about 'filling out in all the right places' from creepy relatives as a child, to having strangers grab your backside on a tube, to outright assault - the range of behaviour begins when we are barely more than children and lasts all our lives.
There are almost too many to list - but I remember some boys shoving their hands up my school skirt as I looked in a shop window aged 13. I had a man photograph me without my consent on the tube; a cab driver stroke my leg; a bar owner corner me in the freezer room; drunk men grope me as I passed them glass collecting aged 15; a man masturbate in front of me on a beach in Greece; a colleague called Dimitri press on my breasts to see if they were 'firm' the day I told my colleagues at Quiz TV (in front of my boss in fact) that I was pregnant with my son. He previously told me that he knew I was pregnant as 'your tits are huge.'
The strange thing is, I have been so conditioned to all of this - that I somehow made it my problem. I saw the fact I had a big chest as something to be ashamed of and so always wore polo necks, sweaters, baggy T shirts - anything to distract from my curves. I even bought a T shirt that had in tiny writing 'I'm up here' across the chest, so as all gawpers were shamed.
My first job in television made me see that the only way to survive in the industry was to accept the vile sexism masked under 'laddish jokes.' A channel famed for a dwarf man bouncing on a trampoline to stick the weather symbols on a map and 'Nudes at Ten' was perhaps not the best way to be taken seriously as a journalist - but I was thrilled to finally get a job. I loved reading the news in front of a man in a 6 foot rabbit costume, reporting from premieres and rushing all over London - working with a lot of decent enthusiastic and brilliant people. One of whom was not my boss - Kelvin MacKenzie. I made a joke about trying to take News Bunny to the Oscars - 'I had two hopes and Bob was the better one' which sadly Kelvin didn't get. So he asked Nick Ferarri to fire me - but in the confusion they almost fired another Irish girl. I was summoned to Ferarri's office where he suggested I wrote an apology letter to placate Kelvin as I wept... Ferrari told me to start it: 'Kelvin you are not only my boss, but my hero.'
I will never forget my news editor Andy Beat helping me write it as I sobbed, terrified I would lose my job. Andy was livid - but what could he do? Meanwhile another boss never made eye contact - staring instead at my chest. Mark Murphy told me - despite securing the first interview with Stella McCartney after her debut Chloe show in Paris 1997 - that "you don't have the right look to present the fashion show." I asked what he was looking for and he replied, "you know someone with personality." I pressed further - aghast at this. He then answered: "We are looking for a model. Not you." I was humiliated, axed from the Fashion Show and made to produce a series of 'Topless Darts at the Circus' or I would be fired. I sobbed over my computer. Again. I had no choice. So I hired great costumes from Angels in Shaftesbury Avenue and tried to make the women feel like showgirls - instead of merely pawns in the channel's pathetic remit.
Women who worked at the channel were expected to enjoy the male banter - be one of the lads, in order to gain acceptance - something I never did. I respected and liked many people there - usually folk who like me, were just so grateful to get their first job in telly - but the atmosphere was toxic. The boss men had their favourites - women in push up bras who played the dumb blonde role - simply for an easier life.
I remember blagging my way into a Bond Premiere and securing (through blatantly lying) interviews with Pierce Brosnan and Judy Dench etc. Live made a special TV show out of it - but instead of congratulating me Ferarri only asked why I hadn't asked Brosnan about his recently deceased wife... The men were congratulated - the women never so. I couldn't wait to escape. I often wondered - would all TV be like this?
I learnt later on that the culture of fear that pervades TV insures that women put up with so much - simply because of the freelance nature of the job. If they speak up against a sexist presenter or overly handsy producer - what hope do they have of ever working for that independent production company again? I remember other friends being livid that in the office at another company, the male staff had a 'wall of punani' filled with photos of scantily clad women. I heard stories all the time of various lechy comments from bosses, filled with promises of what they would do for the woman in question's career.... I have had men bosses tell me that with my 'assets' I would 'go far' as they stare directly at my chest. I always felt I had to prove I had a brain - because by simply having curves, somehow that diminished me.
In later years I worked with a director who told me off for admitting I got the T shirt I was wearing free with a magazine; but allowed the male presenter to simulate sex with the producer as a 'joke' or make any kind of innuendo laden joke he chose to - because clearly he had one rule for men and one for how women should behave. I can honestly say I never suffered sexism or harassment when I moved into TV drama - perhaps because by then I was 35 and a mother of one...
This is all small scale in light of what the women of Hollywood have gone through at the hands of Harvey Weinstein - but the revelations at last mean we having a dialogue that should have been opened a long time ago. The culture of TV has forced women to be silent. To accept that our bodies will be the butt of male humour, that if we don't laugh along with sexist jokes then we are not one of the gang. It is time we were able to stand up for ourselves without recourse. Without fear. Only then, do we have the faintest hope that something may, finally change.
Then the dinosaurs, or rather predators, like Harvey can happily become extinct.
There are almost too many to list - but I remember some boys shoving their hands up my school skirt as I looked in a shop window aged 13. I had a man photograph me without my consent on the tube; a cab driver stroke my leg; a bar owner corner me in the freezer room; drunk men grope me as I passed them glass collecting aged 15; a man masturbate in front of me on a beach in Greece; a colleague called Dimitri press on my breasts to see if they were 'firm' the day I told my colleagues at Quiz TV (in front of my boss in fact) that I was pregnant with my son. He previously told me that he knew I was pregnant as 'your tits are huge.'
The strange thing is, I have been so conditioned to all of this - that I somehow made it my problem. I saw the fact I had a big chest as something to be ashamed of and so always wore polo necks, sweaters, baggy T shirts - anything to distract from my curves. I even bought a T shirt that had in tiny writing 'I'm up here' across the chest, so as all gawpers were shamed.
My first job in television made me see that the only way to survive in the industry was to accept the vile sexism masked under 'laddish jokes.' A channel famed for a dwarf man bouncing on a trampoline to stick the weather symbols on a map and 'Nudes at Ten' was perhaps not the best way to be taken seriously as a journalist - but I was thrilled to finally get a job. I loved reading the news in front of a man in a 6 foot rabbit costume, reporting from premieres and rushing all over London - working with a lot of decent enthusiastic and brilliant people. One of whom was not my boss - Kelvin MacKenzie. I made a joke about trying to take News Bunny to the Oscars - 'I had two hopes and Bob was the better one' which sadly Kelvin didn't get. So he asked Nick Ferarri to fire me - but in the confusion they almost fired another Irish girl. I was summoned to Ferarri's office where he suggested I wrote an apology letter to placate Kelvin as I wept... Ferrari told me to start it: 'Kelvin you are not only my boss, but my hero.'
I will never forget my news editor Andy Beat helping me write it as I sobbed, terrified I would lose my job. Andy was livid - but what could he do? Meanwhile another boss never made eye contact - staring instead at my chest. Mark Murphy told me - despite securing the first interview with Stella McCartney after her debut Chloe show in Paris 1997 - that "you don't have the right look to present the fashion show." I asked what he was looking for and he replied, "you know someone with personality." I pressed further - aghast at this. He then answered: "We are looking for a model. Not you." I was humiliated, axed from the Fashion Show and made to produce a series of 'Topless Darts at the Circus' or I would be fired. I sobbed over my computer. Again. I had no choice. So I hired great costumes from Angels in Shaftesbury Avenue and tried to make the women feel like showgirls - instead of merely pawns in the channel's pathetic remit.
Women who worked at the channel were expected to enjoy the male banter - be one of the lads, in order to gain acceptance - something I never did. I respected and liked many people there - usually folk who like me, were just so grateful to get their first job in telly - but the atmosphere was toxic. The boss men had their favourites - women in push up bras who played the dumb blonde role - simply for an easier life.
I remember blagging my way into a Bond Premiere and securing (through blatantly lying) interviews with Pierce Brosnan and Judy Dench etc. Live made a special TV show out of it - but instead of congratulating me Ferarri only asked why I hadn't asked Brosnan about his recently deceased wife... The men were congratulated - the women never so. I couldn't wait to escape. I often wondered - would all TV be like this?
I learnt later on that the culture of fear that pervades TV insures that women put up with so much - simply because of the freelance nature of the job. If they speak up against a sexist presenter or overly handsy producer - what hope do they have of ever working for that independent production company again? I remember other friends being livid that in the office at another company, the male staff had a 'wall of punani' filled with photos of scantily clad women. I heard stories all the time of various lechy comments from bosses, filled with promises of what they would do for the woman in question's career.... I have had men bosses tell me that with my 'assets' I would 'go far' as they stare directly at my chest. I always felt I had to prove I had a brain - because by simply having curves, somehow that diminished me.
In later years I worked with a director who told me off for admitting I got the T shirt I was wearing free with a magazine; but allowed the male presenter to simulate sex with the producer as a 'joke' or make any kind of innuendo laden joke he chose to - because clearly he had one rule for men and one for how women should behave. I can honestly say I never suffered sexism or harassment when I moved into TV drama - perhaps because by then I was 35 and a mother of one...
This is all small scale in light of what the women of Hollywood have gone through at the hands of Harvey Weinstein - but the revelations at last mean we having a dialogue that should have been opened a long time ago. The culture of TV has forced women to be silent. To accept that our bodies will be the butt of male humour, that if we don't laugh along with sexist jokes then we are not one of the gang. It is time we were able to stand up for ourselves without recourse. Without fear. Only then, do we have the faintest hope that something may, finally change.
Then the dinosaurs, or rather predators, like Harvey can happily become extinct.
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