In case you missed it, Gretchen Carlson detonated the equivalent of a quarter-stick of dynamite on Wednesday when she claimed she’d been sexually harassed by Fox News CEO Roger Ailes for years. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday morning, Carlson claimed she was first demoted, then fired, for turning down Ailes’ numerous advances and protesting her male colleagues’ often churlish behavior. Since then, several other women have stepped forward claiming that Ailes acted like a pig to them as well.
Raw Story’s Brad Reed did some digging on YouTube, and found a number of clips that suggested Carlson may have been trying to sound the alarm for some time before parting ways with the fair and balanced network in June.
The first clip is possibly the most damning. On the June 14, 2012 edition of “Fox & Friends,” Carlson briefly walked off the set after co-host Brian Kilmeade told a blatantly sexist joke. Talking Points Memo got a clip.
Before the start of the “headline time” segment, Kilmeade mused that the fact we let women “play golf and tennis now” was evidence that things were getting “out of control.” Carlson was not amused. She walked off the curvy couch to a slew of giggles, suggesting that Kilmeade read the headlines himself “since men are so great.” She did return later in the segment, though.
At best, you have to wonder what Kilmeade was thinking. He knows there’s a woman sitting next to him, so why would he even think about telling a sexist joke? Makes you wonder just how bad things were off the set. This is important, because Carlson claims Ailes knew she was being sexually harassed by a number of her colleagues and did absolutely nothing.
On the September 19, 2013 edition of Kilmeade’s show on Fox News Radio, “Kilmeade & Friends,” Carlson–who had by then moved to host an afternoon show, “The Real Story”–stopped by for a chat. Media Matters got a clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIt3hXmtejs
Carlson told the audience that she was wearing jeans. That wouldn’t be a big deal in and of itself–but Carlson revealed that female hosts on “Fox & Friends” weren’t allowed to wear pants. Nope, not even dressy slacks.
It reminded me that Fox News has frequently drawn hackles for having its female hosts and anchors wear short, body-hugging dresses and skirts on the air. For instance, according to Gabriel Sherman’s biography of Ailes, “The Loudest Voice in the Room,” Ailes was insistent that he be able to see the legs of his female personalities.
A month later, Carlson did a segment on her show without makeup to protest how women are being sexualized in our culture–potentially opening the door for them to be sexually harassed. Watch here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2SmIDkLQEE
Carlson appeared with Jodi Norgaard, creator of the Go!Go! Sports Girls toy line, to discuss how girls are being sexualized at an early age. Like Carlson, Norgaard also appeared without makeup. That’s ironic, since Fox News is notorious for sexualizing its female personalities. Hardly a day goes by without seeing women appear on Fox News with lots of makeup. Back in 2012, The Atlantic’s Liza Mundy wrote that conservative women have fewer qualms about using their looks to move ahead in the world.
It’s hard to definitively say whether Carlson was trying to tell us she was being sexually harassed. But when you combine these clips with what we know about the environment behind the scenes at Fox News, you at least have to wonder if she was crying for help.
