How we can end sexual harassment at work

Gretchen Carlson speaks at TEDWomen 2017

"All I wanted was
a much-deserved promotion,

and he told me to 'Get up on the desk

and spread 'em.'"

"All the men in my office
wrote down on a piece of paper

the sexual favors
that I could do for them.

All I had asked for
was an office with a window."

"I asked for his advice about how
I could get a bill out of committee;

he asked me if I brought my kneepads."

Those are just a few
of the horrific stories

that I heard from women
over the last year,

as I've been investigating
workplace sexual harassment.

And what I found out

is that it's an epidemic across the world.

It's a horrifying reality
for millions of women,

when all they want to do every day

is go to work.

Sexual harassment doesn't discriminate.

You can wear a skirt,

hospital scrubs,

army fatigues.

You can be young or old,

married or single,

black or white.

You can be a Republican,
a Democrat or an Independent.

I heard from so many women:

police officers,

members of our military,

financial assistants,

actors, engineers, lawyers,

bankers, accountants, teachers ...

journalists.

Sexual harassment, it turns out,

is not about sex.

It's about power,

and about what somebody does to you

to try and take away your power.

And I'm here today

to encourage you to know
that you can take that power back.

(Applause)

On July 6, 2016,

I jumped off a cliff all by myself.

It was the scariest moment of my life;

an excruciating choice to make.

I fell into an abyss all alone,

not knowing what would be below.

But then, something miraculous
started to happen.

Thousands of women
started reaching out to me

to share their own stories
of pain and agony and shame.

They told me that I became their voice --

they were voiceless.

And suddenly, I realized
that even in the 21st century,

every woman still has a story.

Like Joyce,

a flight attendant supervisor

whose boss, in meetings every day,

would tell her about the porn
that he'd watched the night before

while drawing penises on his notepad.

She went to complain.

She was called "crazy" and fired.

Like Joanne, Wall Street banker.

Her male colleagues would call her
that vile c-word every day.

She complained --

labeled a troublemaker,

never to do another
Wall Street deal again.

Like Elizabeth, an army officer.

Her male subordinates would wave
one-dollar bills in her face,

and say, "Dance for me!"

And when she went to complain to a major,

he said, "What? Only one dollar?

You're worth at least five or ten!"

After reading,

replying to all

and crying over all of these emails,

I realized I had so much work to do.

Here are the startling facts:

one in three women -- that we know of --

have been sexually harassed
in the workplace.

Seventy-one percent of those incidences
never get reported.

Why?

Because when women come forward,

they're still called liars
and troublemakers

and demeaned and trashed

and demoted and blacklisted

and fired.

Reporting sexual harassment can be,
in many cases, career-ending.

Of all the women that reached out to me,

almost none are still today working
in their chosen profession,

and that is outrageous.

I, too, was silent in the beginning.

It happened to me at the end
of my year as Miss America,

when I was meeting with
a very high-ranking TV executive

in New York City.

I thought he was helping me
throughout the day,

making a lot of phone calls.

We went to dinner,

and in the back seat of a car,
he suddenly lunged on top of me

and stuck his tongue down my throat.

I didn't realize that to "get
into the business" -- silly me --

he also intended to get into my pants.

And just a week later,

when I was in Los Angeles
meeting with a high-ranking publicist,

it happened again.

Again, in a car.

And he took my neck in his hand,

and he shoved my head
so hard into his crotch,

I couldn't breathe.

These are the events that suck the life
out of all of your self-confidence.

These are the events that, until recently,

I didn't even call assault.

And this is why we have
so much work to do.

After my year as Miss America,

I continued to meet
a lot of well-known people,

including Donald Trump.

When this picture was taken in 1988,

nobody could have ever predicted
where we'd be today.

(Laughter)

Me, fighting to end sexual
harassment in the workplace;

he, president of the United States

in spite of it.

And shortly thereafter, I got
my first gig in television news

in Richmond, Virginia.

Check out that confident smile
with the bright pink jacket.

Not so much the hair.

(Laughter)

I was working so hard to prove
that blondes have a lot of brains.

But ironically, one of the first
stories I covered

was the Anita Hill hearings
in Washington, DC.

And shortly thereafter,

I, too, was sexually harassed
in the workplace.

I was covering a story in rural Virginia,

and when we got back into the car,

my cameraman started saying to me,

wondering how much I had enjoyed
when he touched my breasts

when he put the microphone on me.

And it went downhill from there.

I was bracing myself
against the passenger door --

this was before cellphones.

I was petrified.

I actually envisioned myself
rolling outside of that door

as the car was going 50 miles per hour
like I'd seen in the movies,

and wondering how much it would hurt.

When the story about
Harvey Weinstein came to light --

one the most well-known
movie moguls in all of Hollywood --

the allegations were horrific.

But so many women came forward,

and it made me realize
what I had done meant something.

(Applause)

He had such a lame excuse.

He said he was a product
of the '60s and '70s,

and that that was the culture then.

Yeah, that was the culture then,

and unfortunately, it still is.

Why?

Because of all the myths

that are still associated
with sexual harassment.

"Women should just take another job
and find another career."

Yeah, right.

Tell that to the single mom
working two jobs,

trying to make ends meet,

who's also being sexually harassed.

"Women --

they bring it on themselves."

By the clothes that we wear

and the makeup that we put on.

Yeah, I guess those hoodies
that Uber engineers wear in Silicon Valley

are just so provocative.

"Women make it up."

Yeah, because it's so fun and rewarding

to be demeaned and taken down.

I would know.

"Women bring these claims
because they want to be famous and rich."

Our own president said that.

I bet Taylor Swift,

one of the most well-known
and richest singers in the world,

didn't need more money or fame

when she came forward
with her groping case

for one dollar.

And I'm so glad she did.

Breaking news:

the untold story about women
and sexual harassment in the workplace:

women just want a safe, welcoming

and harass-free environment.

That's it.

(Applause)

So how do we go about
getting our power back?

I have three solutions.

Number one:

we need to turn bystanders
and enablers into allies.

Ninety-eight percent of United States
corporations right now

have sexual harassment training policies.

Seventy percent have prevention programs.

But still, overwhelmingly,

bystanders and witnesses
don't come forward.

In 2016,

the Harvard Business Review
called it the "bystander effect."

And yet -- remember 9/11.

Millions of times we've heard,

"If you see something,

say something."

Imagine how impactful that would be
if we carried that through

to bystanders in the workplace
regarding sexual harassment --

to recognize and interrupt
these incidences;

to confront the perpetrators
to their face;

to help and protect the victims.

This is my shout-out to men:

we need you in this fight.

And to women, too --

enablers to allies.

Number two:

change the laws.

How many of you out there know

whether or not you have
a forced arbitration clause

in your employment contract?

Not a lot of hands.

And if you don't know, you should,

and here's why.

TIME Magazine calls it,

right there on the screen,

"The teeny tiny little print in contracts

that keeps sexual
harassment claims unheard."

Here's what it is.

Forced arbitration takes away
your Seventh Amendment right

to an open jury process.

It's secret.

You don't get the same
witnesses or depositions.

In many cases, the company
picks the arbitrator for you.

There are no appeals,

and only 20 percent of the time
does the employee win.

But again, it's secret,

so nobody ever knows what happened to you.

This is why I've been
working so diligently

on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC

to change the laws.

And here's what I tell the Senators:

sexual harassment is apolitical.

Before somebody harasses you,

they don't ask you if you're
a Republican or Democrat first.

They just do it.

And this is why we should all care.

Number three:

be fierce.

It starts when we stand tall,

and we build that self-confidence.

And we stand up and we speak up,

and we tell the world what happened to us.

I know it's scary,

but let's do it for our kids.

Let's stop this for the next generations.

I know that I did it for my children.

They were paramount in my decision-making

about whether or not I would come forward.

My beautiful children,

my 12-year-old son, Christian,

my 14-year-old daughter, Kaia.

And boy, did I underestimate them.

The first day of school last year

happened to be the day
my resolution was announced,

and I was so anxious
about what they would face.

My daughter came home
from school and she said,

"Mommy, so many people asked me
what happened to you over the summer."

Then she looked at me in the eyes

and she said, "And mommy,

I was so proud

to say that you were my mom."

And two weeks later,

when she finally found the courage
to stand up to two kids

who had been making her life miserable,

she came home to me and she said,

"Mommy, I found the courage to do it

because I saw you do it."

(Applause)

You see, giving the gift
of courage is contagious.

And I hope that my journey
has inspired you,

because right now, it's the tipping point.

We are watching history happen.

More and more women
are coming forward and saying,

"Enough is enough."

(Applause)

Here's my one last plea to companies.

Let's hire back all those women
whose careers were lost

because of some random jerk.

Because here's what I know about women:

we will not longer be underestimated,
intimidated or set back;

we will not be silenced
by the ways of the establishment

or the relics of the past.

No.

We will stand up and speak up

and have our voices heard.

We will be the women we were meant to be.

And above all,

we will always be fierce.

Thank you.

(Applause)