Research for the novel HUDSON:
The legal system didn't work for these women, public support did — in a circuitous way.
With enough outcry, advertisers on O'Reilly's show pulled out. Money talked loudest. Personally, I'd rather the women were simply listened to with empathy and trust, and that the legal system took a zero tolerance stance on sexual assault — but until then, I'll take the work around of zero tolerance as expressed through our spending power.
From the NYTIMES article "It’s Not Just Fox: Why Women Don’t Report Sexual Harassment"
Employers, judges and juries often use women’s failure to report harassment as evidence that it was not a problem or that plaintiffs had other motives. But only a quarter to a third of people who have been harassed at work report it to a supervisor or union representative, and 2 percent to 13 percent file a formal complaint, according to a meta-analysis of studies by Lilia Cortina of the University of Michigan and Jennifer Berdahl of the University of British Columbia Sauder School of Business.
Mostly they fear retaliation, and with good reason, research shows.
In response to a New York Times report this month of payouts to women who had accused the Fox news host Bill O’Reilly of sexual harassment, 21st Century Fox, Fox News’s parent company, said: “No current or former Fox News employee ever took advantage of the 21st Century Fox hotline to raise a concern about Bill O’Reilly, even anonymously.”
In interviews, women who worked at Fox said they didn’t complain to human resources because they feared they would be fired.