Bill O'Reilly, host of Fox News' most popular show The O'Reilly Factor, is under fire for paying settlements for sexual harassment claims over the past few years. The most recent accusers are women who worked for or appeared on his show. Four of the settlements were over sexual harassment claims, and the fifth came from a producer who claims O'Reilly publicly verbally abused her. According to documents and interviews, he made lewd comments and unwanted sexual advancements to the women. Wendy Walsh, a former regular guest on the show, said that O'Reilly offered to make her a contributor before inviting her to his hotel suite. Her decline made him grow hostile. She didn't report it out of fear of ruining her career.
O'Reilly and Fox are estimated to have paid up to $13 million in settlements. Fox has stood by O'Reilly, who has claimed these accusations were false. In response to this, advertisers such as BMW, Jenny Craig, Lexus, Allstate, Subaru, HR Block, Esurance, Mercedes Benz, and Ancestry have withdrawn their ads from the show.
Donald Trump, a known sexual accuser himself and friend of O'Reilly, recently defended O'Reilly to New York Times reporters:
"Personally, I think he shouldn't have settled. Because you should have taken it all the way; I don't think bill did anything wrong. [...] He is a good person."
Many women are not surprised by Fox's defense of O'Reilly, and support advertisers' withdrawl from the show. They are encouraging Fox to fire him by sharing stories of workplace sexual harassment on Twitter with the hashtag #DropOReilly. Donna Lynne Champlin (@DLChamplin), star in the CW series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, shared,
Was propositioned by Sr. salesman in my Dept store job. Said no. I was fired the next day with no explanation. I was 17yrs old
Kallie Plagge (@inkydojikko), an editor for Gamespot, also shared:
Mentor 15 years my senior harassed me for months. HR told me that I was clearly a willing participant, given my provocative chest size.
These are only two shocking stories of workplace sexual harassment, which is a reality for too many women. Cosmopolitan found that 1 in 3 women between the ages of 18 and 34 have been sexually harassed at work. 81% experienced verbal harassment, 44% experienced unwanted touching and advances, and 25% received inappropriate texts or emails. The majority, at a whopping 71%, did not report the harassment.
It is clear that sexual harassment is an epidemic, but our society refuses to do anything about it. We elected someone who has been accused by dozens of women of sexual harassment for president. Fox News allowed Bill O'Reilly to get away with an abhorrent crime for years. Our society is so negligent about this epidemic that 71% of women will not report sexual harassment. Some people keep saying that it was worse in the 1950s and before in an attempt to dwindle the severity today. Things are not better for women today if 1 in 3 women have been sexually harassed, and over half did not report it.
