Gretchen Carlson on Fighting Sexual Harassment

The news anchor encourages women in the wine and spirits industry to speak up and demand action

When Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson came forward in 2016 with sexual harassment allegations against Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, there was no MeToo hashtag or Time’s Up movement. “It was an excruciating decision,” says Carlson. “I felt like I had jumped off a cliff by myself.” In an inspiring keynote address at the Women of the Vine and Spirits Global Symposium Napa, California, this week, Carlson encouraged women to have the courage to speak up about sexual harassment and sexual assault in their workplaces.

Speaking Out

Like many women, Carlson has endured sexual harassment and assault throughout her career. She was harassed by a stalker for four years early in her television days. Screenwriter William Goldman wrote a book in which he referred to her as Miss Piggy for being overweight when she was Miss America in 1989 (she was, in fact, 110 pounds). She was also sexually assaulted twice, in her 20s, while starting out in the television industry. The first time, she had cold-called a high-level TV executive. He spent the day showing her around the offices, making calls on her behalf, and then took her out for dinner. In the backseat of a cab, though, he attacked her. “All of a sudden he lunged me and was on top of me and his tongue was down my throat. I screamed for the driver to stop and let me out of the car,” says Carlson. “At the old age of 22, I didn’t realize that breaking into the television business also meant letting him break into my pants.”

The second time, she was in Los Angeles, meeting with an agent. “Again, we were in a car—he grabbed my neck and he forced my head so hard into his crotch I couldn’t breathe,” says Carlson, adding that she managed to escape.

“Only recently did I realize that these cases weren’t actually harassment—they were assault,” says Carlson. “But like so many female survivors, I thought, ‘I’ve got this. I’m okay. Just move on, Gretchen.’ I bought into the myth that somehow I’d asked for it, and thought I wouldn’t be believed if I told people anyway.” It took Carlson 25 years to call these two instances assault out loud.

So while she encourages women to speak up about sexual harassment and assault—and also urges men to speak out when they see it happening in the workplace—she realizes how tough it can be. When Carlson’s complaints went public in 2016, she was most concerned about the impact her case would have on her children, who were 11 and 12 at the time. “They were of paramount concern to me,” she says. “My face was constantly on the news, and they were going to school.” But ultimately, she says, she underestimated her kids. Her daughter came home from school bewildered by all the gossip but said, “Mom, I felt so proud to tell them that you are my mom!” And when her daughter finally stood up to two kids at school who had been taunting her, she told Carlson, “Mommy, I found the bravery and the courage to do it because I saw you do it.”

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