After former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson went public with sexual harassment allegations against Roger Ailes, scores of women reached out to her with their own similar stories, she said.
One common theme emerged: The women lost their jobs one way or another while their harassers kept theirs, she said.
“Why should women be stripped of the American dream? And, we watch predators fall and the next week we talk about ‘where will they land again’ with their job?” Carlson said Thursday at CNN’s town hall on sexual harassment.
It can happen through various means. Sometimes, job loss comes from retaliatory measures. One study found that two-thirds of public employees who complained of sexual harassment said they suffered retaliation, including dismissal, involuntary transfer or demotion. Other times, people leave their jobs as part of settlements.
Carlson said she has a proposal to companies: hire those women back and let go of the predators.
“Let’s go out and find all those American women who work just as hard as all the rest of us for the American dream who had it taken away from them because they had the courage to come forward and blow the whistle on somebody else.
“Forget about whether the predators are coming back into the workplace.”