My Hollywood Sexual Harassment Story
My personal accounts of sexual harassment in an industry where bad behavior is encouraged and protected.
Two years ago I wrote a story about my personal experiences with sexual harassment in Hollywood. In light of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, I thought I’d bring this story back to the surface. I can’t begin to describe how happy I am to see a man like Harvey Weinstein get his comeuppance.
Iwas offered the job of personal assistant at 20 years old. I felt lucky for the opportunity. A small-town nerd and lover of the Marx Brothers and David Lynch somehow made it to Hollywood.
Male chauvinism was a foreign concept to me, having been raised by a strong-willed single mother and ambitious grandmother. Maybe this upbringing was damaging, for I wasn’t prepared for Hollywood’s gender divide and rampant sexism.
In my five years as a female assistant, I experienced:
-My supervisor asking me to give him a blow job.
-Same supervisor audibly and regularly using the term “cunt” when referring to a female work colleagues who disagreed with him.
-Different supervisor often talking to me about the size of my breasts. He’d regularly ask another female employee to lift up her shirt and give him a show.
-A married colleague, who was 30 years my senior, asking me to sleep with him when we were at a work conference.
None of these occurrences fazed me at the time. It was Hollywood after all.
That’s just the way it is…
