Fox News Harassment Case Highlights Workplace Paradox

The recent sexual harassment allegations made by female Fox News employees against CEO Roger Ailes eventually led to his ouster, and exposed what was reportedly a toxic environment. What shocked some was that many of the more prominent female employees and anchors at the network, including Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly, were among those targeted. However, Margaret Talbot writes for the New Yorker, the culture at the network is not as unusual as one might imagine in that respect. Studies have found that women in positions of authority, especially in workplaces dominated by men, may be more likely to experience sexual harassment than women in less senior jobs. “[T]o most people the most common scenario is still the powerful male boss and the vulnerable female secretary,” Heather McLaughlin, one of the authors of a 2012 study, “Sexual Harassment, Workplace Authority, and the Paradox of Power,” told Talbot. But it may be more prevalent where women are “gaining power in the workplace, and it becomes a way of trying to re-establish who’s actually in charge.” Though the results seem counter-intuitive, she says, they also reinforce the idea that workplace sexual harassment is often not about sex, but about power.