According to a new survey looking into the film industry has found that nearly every woman working in the entertainment industry has a #MeToo story.
Deadline reports that 94% of women surveyed by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center said they had been subjected to some sort of harassment or abuse by an older individual in a position of power.
The women reported a wide range of behavior including – sexual comments, groping, being propositioned or shown sexually explicit images, or being flashed. In fact, some women reported they were coerced into having sex or forced to disrobe and appear naked at an audition without advance warning.
Fearful of being blackballed from the film industry, only one out of four women reported the incidents. Of those who did report, only 28% said their work situation improved after making a report.
Results of the survey, conducted in cooperation with The Creative Coalition and Women in Film and Television. Anita Raj, the director of the Center of Gender Equity and Health at the University of California, San Diego’s medical school, said women do not always know the line between entertainment and what is sexual harassment. In fact, Raj gives a very poignant example. Adrien Brody, who won the best-actor Oscar in 2003, grabbed presenter Halle Berry and dip-kissed her at the podium before his acceptance speech. According to Raj, kissing someone without their consent is a crime in California. Halle Berry later acknowledged years later that she was unhappy with the incident, but everyone just laughed.
“Yes, I’d like to see more solidity in the scientific aspects of how the data was collected. But 94% does not seem shocking. It says this is ubiquitous in Hollywood,” Raj says. “There is a lack of clarity on what constitutes professional interactions in this (Hollywood) context. So it wouldn’t surprise me if in fact, it were 94%.”
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