Fox News Accused of Sexual Harassment

Hard to believe:

The commission claims that a Fox vice president, Joe Chillemi, "routinely used gross obscenities and vulgarities when describing women or their body parts," language that it says Mr. Chillemi "did not use with male employees." The suit contends that Mr. Chillemi "routinely cursed at and otherwise denigrated women employees," telling them to "be a man."

The suit charges that Mr. Chillemi, in a discussion about a television segment focusing on sexism in the workplace, said, "Of course I'd pick the man" if he had to choose between a woman and a man for the same position, because he was concerned that a woman could become pregnant and leave her job.
Yeah, that might happen. Or she could leave her job for any one of the same reasons that a man might leave his job—a better position, more money, desire to relocate, job dissatisfaction, injury, illness, retirement, hitting the jackpot. I’ll never understand why the fact that women have one reason that men don’t for possibly leaving a job (and one that often results only in a short leave of absence, at that) leads people to assume that a man is a better candidate for long-term employment.

In truth, if a company is accommodating to women with families, she has more reason to stay than a man who may not directly benefit from those policies. We’ve all known women who pass up better jobs and/or more money at another company to stay with a company with family-friendly policies. (That’s a bullshit decision to have to make, but that’s a whole other post.) Of course, that’s an argument for progressive corporate policy-making, in which I suspect Fox News has little interest.

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