In case you’ve been in a coma for the past, well, forever, here’s a news flash: Hollywood has not been a great working environment for women generally! And a new survey conducted by the Writers Guild of America West shows just how not great. 64 percent of female writers say they’ve been harassed, and the Guild stated that “a significant amount of the harassment writers experience occurs in the writers room.” Meanwhile only 11 percent of men reported experiencing harassment. The survey also showed “many more writers have witnessed harassment.”
According to Deadline, a number of respondents cited a court decision that was often used to justify harassment in the workplace. In 2006 the California Supreme Court issued what is known as the Friends decision, which says that state law “does not outlaw sexually coarse and vulgar language or conduct that merely offends.” While the Guild acknowledged that dirty jokes in the writers room are generally protected by this case, “the decision does not permit such talk to be aimed at an individual in the room.” WGA hopes to use the results of the survey to “implement a full array of responses” to help create better working environments.
