• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, September 9, 2018

Recent news makes you realize just how far women have to go to achieve parity and respect in many fields — not the least of which are advertising and media. 

There was the stunning follow up report from The New Yorker yesterday that six more women have accused CBS CEO Les Moonves of sexual harassment (or worse). That’s on top of the previous six women that the publication wrote about in August.

Moonves may well be gone by the time you read this and most likely without the $100 million severance package he was reportedly negotiating. What a shame. 

[Update: Shortly after this item posted, CBS confirmed that Moonves was out and without that aforementioned mountain of cash].

A couple of days ago, Adweek reported lawsuits by several women at agency Innocean charging sex discrimination, assault and wrongful termination with a lawyer for one of the plaintiffs likening the atmosphere at the agency to a “rowdy college fraternity.” 

Those are just the latest examples in media and advertising to expose abuse against women. You’ve read about the dozens of other cases that have been exposed since the Harvey Weinstein case broke wide open nearly a year ago.  

It’s great to see all of this abuse exposed. It makes you wonder though, how much of it remains hidden. 

And the bigger more important question: What’s it going to take to curtail such behavior? What doesn’t help: having a Sexist-In-Chief in the post of so-called leader of the free world. Like they say, the fish stinks from the head down. 

Wish I had the answer.