Photo courtesy of Jeff Simms via Flickr
Like many other high-profile men in the news recently, Matt Lauer was accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with an intern and other women have since come forward. Lauer was fired from NBC last Wednesday after two decades of being the host of the hit morning show, “Today.”
Recently, the media experienced an epidemic of young women alleging they were sexually harassed by men of power. This came at no surprise. Lauer is only one of seven prominent journalists that have been accused of sexual misconduct since Harvey Weinstein. Even so, this allegation is different.
When Lauer interviewed Bill O’Reilly, he exemplified extreme hypocritical behavior. Exactly two months prior to his allegations, Lauer grilled O’Reilly about his firing from Fox News.
“You were probably the last guy in the world that they wanted to fire because you were the guy that the ratings and the revenues were built on,” Lauer said while interviewing O’Reilly.
We can say precisely the same about Lauer. He was the hit man of NBC with very high ratings and “the biggest star at the network.” Yet, he is being accused of giving a colleague a sex toy as a present, reprimanding an employee after she refused to have sex with him and questioning female producers on NBC about their sexual relationships.
It is apparent that the network executives wanted to shelter Lauer from any bad accusations getting out. An unnamed former employee of NBC stated that the network executives “protected the sh*t out of Matt Lauer.”
Lauer also questioned O’Reilly by asking such questions like, “Did you ever send a lewd text or email to another employee?” and “Did you ever have any human resources cases brought against you?” All of which are true in Lauer’s case. People have said that Lauer had a history of texting salacious comments to women and saying them in public.
Again, I am not surprised that executives knew and wanted to protect him. He was the star pupil of the network who racked in a lot of ratings and money for the “Today” show. However, it is surprising that 2018 is almost here, and some men still do not know how to behave themselves. Were they not taught how to treat the opposite sex with upmost respect?
When a woman says no, it is a no. When a woman is not interested, leave her alone. Adding on, everyone should know that you do not flirt in the workplace. We would think that famous journalists like Lauer and O’Reilly would use better sense to not flirt.
It is sad that some men still do not know how to treat women and it shows how this world is upside down. What is worse is that these men are not owning up to their actions. Let us face it. Kids are the future and respect is key for a functioning society. If Lauer and all these other men in the headlines were taught to regard women as equals, then this epidemic of powerful men abusing women would not be happening.
