{"id":1226,"date":"2017-05-01T08:00:40","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T12:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/annelitwin.com\/?p=1226"},"modified":"2017-05-01T08:00:40","modified_gmt":"2017-05-01T12:00:40","slug":"sexual-harassment-and-the-culture-of-masculinity-at-fox-news-uber-and-in-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/blog-posts\/sexual-harassment-and-the-culture-of-masculinity-at-fox-news-uber-and-in-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Sexual Harassment and the Culture of Masculinity at Fox News, Uber, and in Society"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<![CDATA[<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1223\" src=\"http:\/\/annelitwin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Sexual-Harassment-and-the-Culture-of-Masculinity-at-Fox-News-Uber-and-in-Society-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Sexual-Harassment-and-the-Culture-of-Masculinity-at-Fox-News-Uber-and-in-Society-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Sexual-Harassment-and-the-Culture-of-Masculinity-at-Fox-News-Uber-and-in-Society.jpg 334w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Why is sexual harassment so widespread? Recent headlines reveal sexual harassment scandals at Fox News\u2014against Roger Ailes and Bill O\u2019Reilly\u2014and a long list of technology and financial organizations including Uber and Tesla. Additional offenders play on sports teams at multiple universities. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/04\/01\/opinion\/sunday\/manhood-in-the-age-of-trump.html?_r=0\">Frank Bruni<\/a> of the <em>New York Times<\/em> writes that we need to take a close look at the culture of masculinity in the United States to understand the source and the pervasiveness of sexual harassment.\nBruni explains that the US culture of masculinity teaches that a man must be \u201ca force of nature with untamable appetites\u201d for conquering women, bullying opponents, and avoiding domestic chores such as changing diapers. He notes that Donald J. Trump won millions of votes by projecting a classic masculine persona, indicating that a large segment of Americans find this notion of manhood familiar and acceptable.\nBruni cites a new study by Promundo, a nonprofit organization promoting gender equity, showing that the messages young men receive today about how to be a man have not changed. For example, in a sample of thirteen hundred American men between the ages of eighteen and thirty, 75 percent said they are supposed to act strong even when they are scared or nervous, 63 percent said that they\u2019re exhorted to seize sex whenever available, and 46 percent said that they\u2019re waved away from household chores. Bruni notes that the results of this study reflect \u201ca constricted concept of manhood that includes aggression, hypersexuality, supreme authority, and utter self-sufficiency,\u201d described by some sociologists as the \u201cman box.\u201d\nBruni reflects that the cost to men of living in the \u201cman box\u201d is that these men are \u201cmore likely to act out in self-destructive ways such as substance abuse and online bullying.\u201d Condoning a hypermasculine concept of manhood actively damages our society. President Trump currently\n\n\n<ul>\n \t\n\n<li>Surrounds himself with generals<\/li>\n\n\n \t\n\n<li>Increases the military budget<\/li>\n\n\n \t\n\n<li>Cuts funding for arts, science, healthcare, and the social safety net<\/li>\n\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\nLet\u2019s not forget the message he is sending to men and boys when he defends Bill O\u2019Reilly as \u201cdoing nothing wrong\u201d by sexually harassing women.\nFox News provides an example of a company culture that affirms hypermasculinity and condones sexual harassment. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/04\/01\/business\/media\/bill-oreilly-sexual-harassment-fox-news.html\">Emily Steel and Michael S. Schmidt<\/a> write that the company stood behind O\u2019Reilly for two decades while legally silencing multiple women and quietly paying millions of dollars to settle sexual harassment claims against him\u2014even after dismissing Roger Ailes last summer and vowing \u201cnot (to) tolerate behavior that disrespects women.\u201d Fox News continued to tolerate O\u2019Reilly. Two of O\u2019Reilly\u2019s settlements occurred after the dismissal of Ailes, yet Fox didn\u2019t punish O\u2019Reilly.\nI wrote in a previous <a href=\"http:\/\/annelitwin.com\/why-sexual-harassment-is-still-happening-in-the-workplace\/\">article<\/a> about the ways that organizations like Fox News perpetuate cultures that condone sexual harassment. As long as organizations silence women and allow women\u2019s careers to be ruined while protecting powerful men, sexual harassment will continue unabated.\nUber is another example of a masculine culture negatively impacting women, but a glimmer of hope for change appears possible. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/03\/01\/technology\/uber-case-could-be-a-watershed-for-women-in-tech.html\">Farhad Manjoo<\/a> of the <em>New York Times<\/em> reports that revelations about the culture of sexism and sexual harassment at Uber were no surprise to women in other Silicon Valley organizations because\n\n\n<ul>\n \t\n\n<li>Sexual harassment is rampant in technology companies<\/li>\n\n\n \t\n\n<li>The men responsible for sexual harassment are rarely punished<\/li>\n\n\n \t\n\n<li>Nothing changes because of a deeply entrenched \u201cbro culture,\u201d described by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/07\/10\/opinion\/sunday\/how-wall-street-bro-talk-keeps-women-down.html?_r=0\">Sam Polk<\/a> in the <em>New York Times<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\nManjoo says that Uber\u2019s competition provides a glimmer of hope. He cites Karen Catlin, an advocate for women in the tech industry, who explained that there is a \u201cheightened awareness of the issues women face due to misogynistic men\u201d since the Women\u2019s March in January 2017. The March marshalled grassroots social media energy to pressure Uber to change (#deleteUber). Uber lost many customers to competitors because of this pressure. Certain key investors have declared their intention to hold Uber accountable for change.\nManjoo writes, \u201cIt could take years of careful and publicly embarrassing actions for Uber and other companies to become more hospitable to women.\u201d Note the key concept here: <em>publicly embarrassing actions.<\/em> Transparency and accountability are essential. We must eliminate nondisclosure forms that silence women and prevent accountability. Maybe Uber will lead the way in creating a corporate culture more hospitable to women. Unfortunately, this is not likely to happen at Fox News.\n&nbsp;\nPhoto courtesy of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/87913776@N00\/517077576\/\">futureatlas.com\/blog<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\">CC by 2.0<\/a>]]>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<![CDATA[]]>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11,52,147,219,265,284,363,370,371,500,526,583,588,612],"class_list":["post-1226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts","tag-accountability","tag-bill-oreilly","tag-donald-trump","tag-fox-news","tag-harassment","tag-hypermasculinity","tag-manhood","tag-masculine-culture","tag-masculinity","tag-roger-ailes","tag-sexual-harassment","tag-transparency","tag-uber","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}