As you may have heard, Bill O'Reilly was fired from Fox News amid sexual harassment complaints. According to the New York Times, over the past 20 years, Fox has paid out $13 million to settle some of these complaints. A few weeks ago, the New York Times did an article on one woman, Wendy Walsh, who accused O'Reilly of sexual harassment and it triggered a backlash. Protests sprung up outside the Fox New Corp. Building, advertisers soon began pulling ads from The Factor, Bill took a conveniently-timed vacation, and one week later the news came down that he and Fox were parting ways. However, O'Reilly has been with Fox for 20 years, and these allegations have been coming up since he started at the company. So why did it take so long for Fox to part ways with Mr. O'Reilly?

First of all, he had back up. With men like Roger Ailes, who was just recently booted out of Fox News over similar allegations, and Rupert Murdoch, O'Reilly had a safety net. He had a money train to keep these women silent. The Factor was also the number one rated show, which means O'Reilly was bringing in that money from advertisers. Keep that in mind for my last point. According to sources, it was the Murdoch children who scheduled the board meeting that eventually led to the decision to fire O'Reilly. The Murdoch children were incessantly pleading with their father to agree with them that this was the right decision. Not just with O'Reilly, but this also happened in the Ailes situation as well.

Second, in my opinion, Fox News is a very misogynistic channel. From the way they covered Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, and anything else, to the way the women are required to wear short dresses. Watch Fox and Friends for five minutes and I guarantee you Steve Doocey will say something about a woman's place being in the kitchen. Turn on "Hannity" and there will be some 'expert' saying women don't deserve equal pay because we "choose to get paid less than men, so that we can take care of the home," ignoring the data that shows 70% of women with children participate in the workforce.

My third and final point: the outpouring of calls to O'Reilly's advertisers finally paid off. Thanks to the people around the nation who called the companies that advertised on The Factor, the ads pulled out of his show. Mercedes was the first one to go. Within a few days of his vacation, his normal 33 spots dropped to just 10. This sounds boring, but to lose 23 ads with just 2 or 3 days, that's a lot of money. In television, money talks, and if you aren't making it you're not worth it.

So, just like that, Bill is gone. The face of Fox News is gone, thanks to the protest and the uprising that is happening around this country. Women are leading this charge against injustice and it's a great sight to be seen, and in fact, it is long overdue. Something shifted in this country on November 9th, 2016 that can not be put into words -- how frustrated people are right now. Not only with our government, but with seeing rich white men trying to take control when they are so desperately losing it. Trump defended O'Reilly when the New York Times article came out. Trump explicitly said that he "didn't think Bill did anything wrong." Mr. Trump may not think that O'Reilly did anything wrong, but a lot of people do and I am thankful of that. I am also thankful to the women who have come out to accuse O'Reilly and got their stories out there. Hopefully it will encourage other women to be brave enough to do the same.