Samantha Bee Details The Endless Instances Of Sexual Harassment That Await Women In The Workforce
"What's the point of encouraging little girls to dream big if any career puts them in the path of boob-honkers?"
Since first going to air a few weeks ago, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee has hit the ground running. Between pointing out so-called “moderate” Republican Presidential candidate John Kasich’s abysmal record on abortion rights, unpicking the absurdity of America’s hysteria about Syrian refugees, and providing some pretty excellent commentary on the various candidate debates, Full Frontal has punched above its weight in the pantheon of Daily Show-style comedy/news shows, tackling serious and rarely-discussed issues with a vigour and honesty that rivals (or even exceeds) John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight.
That commitment to making the audience uncomfortable in pursuit of revealing troubling truths was on full display in Full Frontal‘s latest episode. Challenging the vaguely empowering you-go-girl language of initiatives like Lean In, Bee turned her attention to a huge but frequently overlooked barrier to female participation in the workforce: sexual harassment, abuse and violence at the hands of male colleagues.
From national parks to stand-up comedy to the horrific culture of ignoring rape and assault on cruise ships, Bee makes the point that encouraging women to enter the workplace isn’t all that helpful if those same women can expect to be harassed or worse by their coworkers. “Remind me again, what is the point of encouraging little girls to dream big if any career puts them in the path of boob-honkers? There’s not a workplace on land or sea, or even at the bottom of a big, deep hole in the ground where we’re actually keeping women safe.”