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'Death by a thousand cuts': How minor incidents of harassment create toxic environments for women

It wasn’t until her professor began stroking her hands over a plate of Tater Tots that Brittany Rostron realized the man across the table believed they were on a date and not a business meeting.

She was 23 and hoping to make the leap from public relations into movies. He had offered to read an original script she wrote and suggested an in-person meeting to review it. But when she arrived at the local cafe, he hadn’t read her work.

“He reiterated that he thought I had talent and that I should keep pursuing this, and then sort of the conversation just started to change,” she said. “At one point, he just started saying to me, ‘You know, I can't believe you're 23. It's crazy to me you're only 23.’ ”

Rostron said she became uncomfortable as the exchange grew personal and he touched, then kissed, her hands. She feigned an early morning obligation and wrapped up the conversation.

Rostron tried her best to put the experience out of her mind, postponing plans to attend grad school and putting the script away. But that experience and a few others with different men throughout her life  — an undesired shoulder rub, a revered mentor who slapped her butt — stayed with her though she tried to laugh off each instance and move on.

"The fact that I think about them over and over again points to how they have affected me," she said.

"You start questioning: Was it ever anything to do with how good I was or was it just because he wanted to hit on me? Did they ever mean it? Was it ever because of my talent,or because they were only trying to get something out of me?"

As the debate has raged about sexual harassment in the months since allegations of abuse by producer Harvey Weinstein hit headlines, questions have emerged about whether seemingly "lesser" experiences have been lumped in with more serious ones in a rush to judgment.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in December found that while most American adults agree that intentional groping or kissing without consent constitutes sexual harassment, they disagree on whether compliments on appearance (38 percent said yes; 47 percent said no) and dirty jokes (41 percent said yes; 44 percent said no) amount to the same.

"There’s a common assumption of a hierarchy of abuse. People often assume that gender harassment is a lesser offense; these are just words and insults and derogatory terms of address that don’t rise to the level of physical behavior or violence," said Lilia Cortina, professor of psychology and women's studies at the University of Michigan. "But actually, when we compare that assumption to the research records, it does not hold up to scientific scrutiny."

According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, sexual harassment can include unwelcome sexual advances and verbal harassment, though teasing, offhand comments and isolated incidents only become illegal when repetitive or pervasive.

But new research suggests that isolated comments, lingering stares, and far more minor behaviors that send devaluing messages can cause a negative psychological impact as serious as the effects of physical or other types of harassment.

Louise Fitzgerald, a social-science expert on sexual harassment and professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Illinois,  said the legal concept of sexual harassment is much narrower than that used by researchers.

Her team set out to answer the question of how to count the number of people who have been harassed, and whether the legal measurements fully capture all those who have been psychologically affected by sexual harassment. They found that even the least egregious actions can have negative impacts on women.

“There was basically no difference in terms of their emotional reactions,” Fitzgerald said.

“The thing that is most important in damage is frequency and duration,” not the specific type of behavior, she said. “Little things that happen very frequently or that are just embedded in the workplace culture can have the same, or largely the same, impact as severe things like grabbing and fondling.”

That means everyday behaviors — turning professional meetings into dates, or jokes about how women don't have a mind for certain tasks — can, over time, cause as much damage as an unwanted physical interaction.

“Obviously, sexual assault is worse than hearing somebody tell a dirty joke, I don’t want to say this more broadly than I mean it,” Fitzgerald said. “But it’s kind of like Chinese water torture.”

A CNN report published last month, featuring 16 people describing an alleged pattern of uncomfortable sexual remarks, ogling and unwanted touching by actor Morgan Freeman, has put the issue in clear focus.

Freeman, who denied the accusations saying "I am not someone who would intentionally offend or knowingly make anyone feel uneasy," issued a 10-page letter to CNN president Jeff Zucker via his attorney demanding a retraction. In the letter, the actor and his attorney, Robert M. Schwartz, dissected the alleged individual incidents, including a claim by one of the article's authors. Reporter Chloe Melas said she interviewed Freeman for his film "Going in Style" while pregnant, and the actor ogled her body while saying things like "You are ripe" and "Boy, do I wish I was there," referring to her pregnancy.

In the letter, Freeman and Schwartz said Melas "imagined an incident, or exaggerated a nonmalicious remark wildly out of proportion to reality."

In a five-page response obtained by USA TODAY, CNN legal department vice president David Vigilante said: "The story addresses one of the most important social questions of our time: Should women be forced to endure this type of treatment in exchange for the privilege of engaging in their chosen profession?"

The term "microaggressions" has become a hot topic in the debate about the #MeToo movement. Harvard psychiatrist Chester Pierce coined the term in 1970 to describe racially charged "subtle blows ... delivered incessantly" toward black people in the U.S. Columbia psychology professor Derald Wing Sue later expanded the concept to include its effects on other marginalized groups, including other racial and religious minorities, women and the LGBTQ community.

Sue said the term includes female doctors mistaken for nurses, women ignored or passed over in meetings or being referred to as overly emotional.

Though the term has gotten a lot of attention, many of the behaviors are so culturally ingrained that rooting them out is more complex than firing one bad actor. Often women experience these behaviors so frequently from so many different places, that it can become pervasive and illegal.

"Sometimes it becomes so common for people, in particular women, that it doesn’t occur to them it could be a violation of the law," said Cortina. "For them its just everyday life on the job."

In places like Hollywood, where this type of behavior has been normalized for decades, its not surprising that women who never come into contact with accused serial predators like Bill Cosby still feel the effects.

In an exclusive USA TODAY survey on sexual harassment and assault in Hollywood, more than half of 800-plus respondents, 67 percent, said they've experienced unwelcome sexual comments, jokes or gestures more than once; 64 percent said they've been propositioned for a sexual act or relationship in an unwelcome way more than once.

“It has gone on from my first day as a camera trainee on a movie 23 years ago. Most of it would qualify as a potentially hostile work environment that felt like a death by a thousand cuts,” said a camera operator in her early 50s who responded to the survey but asked to remain anonymous. “Everything from my wardrobe and the tool belt I was wearing to my t-shirts and pants when I worked as a camera assistant would be commented on. I had to listen to stories of who was sleeping with whom, who wanted to sleep with whom, and commentary on women's bodies who we were filming — and it had nothing to do with the job on hand.”

Other respondents cited instances of gender stereotypes being used against them.

"I have experienced plenty of sexism-being told there are no good female DP's (directors of photography) in our area, that the reason there aren't more female directors is because no women want to be directors, being blamed, insulted, and belittled by a male EP (executive producer) because he hasn't done his job properly, told I have an attitude by the same EP because I didn't immediately offer to work until 9 pm on a Friday when he had left the office at 12pm, being told to smile more by the same EP," said a production assistant, 18-24, who also responded to the survey but asked to remain anonymous.

The vast majority of respondents reported a tendency in the entertainment industry to brush off casual misogyny as innocuous bluster.

“There's this incredibly macho energy and it's like a boys club,” said Beth Powder, a filmmaker and community organizer who worked for 17 years in Hollywood.

“But these are grown men and you can't say 'boys will be boys,' because then when you're a woman in that environment, you have this added component of these strange attacks against you. They're sexual in nature, where men take your sexuality and weaponize it against you.”

The cumulative effect is a toxic atmosphere that can leave women feeling depressed, anxious and trapped.

Powder grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles and said she started working in the business at a young age, volunteering as a production assistant for friends and booking a few national commercials before realizing she wanted to be behind the camera. She moved to San Francisco in 1998 when she was 18, and began working as a production coordinator before returning to L.A.

But the longer she stayed, and the further she progressed in her career, the more difficult harassment became to manage, Powder said.

She describes one instance at a gas station on her way to a set when a suited man in a Maserati walked up and gave her his business card, saying he worked with a film fund. He told her repeatedly he liked her look, offering to kick-start her career, but she left feeling that he was more interested in her physically than professionally.

"I'm positive that I would have been expected to have sex with him or someone he knows based on the way he was talking to me if I wanted to get anywhere," she said. "It was really gross."

"It's disgusting how common this is. It feels like you're walking into a minefield every day when you come into work."

One of the final straws came in the form of a low-budget movie. Powder said she was brought on as a production manager and was quickly moved up to producer. The project, she said, was a disaster from the start.

Powder said the majority of the female crew faced sexual insinuations from the director, lead actor and producers, and when they tried to rebuff the advances, were met with slurs about their sexual orientation. Powder said when she refused to take part in the banter, the director and other leads would insult her.

"I’m a bitch because I don’t get it, I’m spoiling their fun," she said.

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Many of the women interviewed by USA TODAY aren't looking for all harassers to face a Harvey Weinstein-level public downfall or firing like Matt Lauer, saying their primary goal is for the behavior to stop.

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“I just want to go to work every day. I want to make a really good movie and I want to go home and get as much sleep as I can and then go back and do it again,” Powder said. “And I don't want to walk through land mines at work all day, every day.”

Rostron, who transitioned to the film industry and earned her masters from New York University a few years after the encounter with her professor, said she's not angry and doesn't believe he needs to be punished.

"I don't blame him personally," she said. "I just hope if he hears the story, or if other people like him hear the story, they now know that's how they make us feel. And they should re-evaluate how they approach those situations."

Education is one way women hope the system begins to change. But they've found other ways to combat the impact and keep going.

Kayden Phoenix, a Latina writer, director, producer from East Los Angeles, said people in the industry would often comment on how she was pretty and smart, “As if I couldn't be both.”

In one instance, a producer who was interested in a script she wrote about martial arts greeted her for the first time by saying "I’m so surprised you’re a girl," following up with: "Why would you want to write a martial arts script?"

“This prompted me into writing and directing martial arts and action shorts with an all-female crew,” Phoenix said.

After the #MeToo movement took off, she joined a team of more than 20 female filmmakers who used their personal experiences to create a public service announcement to further the momentum of the movement.

"I've never felt belittled, just stronger.”

Inspired by her own experiences, Rostron founded the nonprofit FACES (Female Artistic and Commercial Entrepreneurial Support), which works to increase the number of women working in film, TV and media.

Through mentorship programs, job placement assistance and all-female productions aimed at getting women resume-boosting experience, FACES tries to increase  female influence at all levels of the entertainment industry. Programs also focus on confidence-building and creating support systems with the ultimate goal of combating sexual harassment and gender inequality.

Rostron knows that not all situations, particularly dangerous ones, can be solved with a dose of confidence. But she said support networks can help more women overcome negative experiences and keep working in the industry.

“When I meet with women and we talk about it, I tell them, ‘Yeah, that's happened to me a thousand times. And does it affect you? Yes. But trust me, keep at it, you can do it,’ ” she said. “And maybe if it helps another 23-year-old who's sitting at a table eating a french fry and, you know, a professor grabs her hands over the table, she can say, ‘Hey, back to that script.’ ”