A collective amount of 80 people ranging from teenage students to adults in their late 70’s shuffled into Drexel University’s Bossone auditorium November 11th awaiting the appearance of Gretchen Carlson, former Fox News host, 1988 Miss America winner and advocate against sexual harassment to speak about her new book, “Be Fierce”.
Image courtesy of DrexelNewsBlog
In addition to speaking about her novel, Carlson touched on her experiences with sexual harassment, how students can generally take stand against it, and the current political climate’s impact on the conversation of sexual harassment. Each member in the audience received a free copy of Be Fierce and could had the opportunity to get it signed after her keynote.
Carlson’s novel is extremely timely considering the array of sexual harassment allegations against big named celebrities, such as Harvey Weinstein and Tom Sizemore. Carlson was one of the first female public figures to speak out against sexual harassment in 2016. She was fired from Fox studios after rejecting sexual advances from Roger Ailes then later filed a lawsuit against Fox Studios. Carlson won the lawsuit and was granted a large sum of money but the real reward was the public reach that the lawsuit brought on. Following her lawsuit, Carlson went on to be an advocate against sexual harassment writing two novels detailing her experiences and how to end it once and for all.
During her keynote, Carlson was asked to touch on how she got to where she is today as an advocate. She spoke about her first experience with sexual harassment which occurred after winning Miss America. Her brush with harassment ended with her sobbing on the car ride home. Her harasser was a New York television executive who was supposed to help her get into the industry. That was not her only experience before Fox, however. A public relations executive shoved her head on his crotch. Gretchen describes how she felt just as powerless seeing that same executive in her office 23 years later as she did in that moment.“Women take it and take it [the harassment] and think they can work and push past it thinking that it’ll go away and that the harasser will appreciate their talents but that’s not what happens,” said Carlson when asked how harassment sticks with its victims.
Carlson also noted how the journey to end sexual harassment does not belong to a specific party. She did however note that the fight is more so fought by Democrats but she wants both parties to end it, “I’m advocating for both parties to get on board to take the secrecy off of this.” To emphasize how sexual harassment has no connection to politics, Carlson made a note that nobody asks what political party they associate with before they sexually harass someone. Carlson’s book details a 12-step plan on how to prevent and end sexual harassment. During her keynote Carlson highlighted the 3 most important steps to follow. The first was to call a lawyer before contacting anyone in the company. “You can’t go back and get evidence, but you can go back and get a lawyer” Carlson noted how some people get fired after filing complaints and cannot get evidence from their workplace. Her second step is to document everything and bring it home. And the third is to tell at least three trusted colleagues about the harassment because their word will hold better in a court room than what your sister or close friends says.
Carlson spoke of how young people should encourage everyone to be apart of the process to end harassment if they want to solve it. The audience then was able to comment and ask questions, one named Mikey Pavone who spoke about how her sorority helped her overcome an experience with sexual harassment and how she had to reach out to overcome bystanders. After Carlson’s keynote Pavone commented on her experience that night, “I️ feel like it’s super important for students to go to these types of speeches. Gretchen Carlson is an amazing advocate and really helped show me that harassment doesn’t end in high school or college, but that it can follow us even to our work place.” Gretchen Carlson’s keynote was an extremely timely visit. Her experiences and advice for her audience helped show the community how real and prevalent sexual harassment is but also how important it is to make an effort to end it.