Film Industry Women Who Know Someone Harassed This Year Drop by a Third in New Survey

Ahead of the sixth anniversary of The New York Times’ exposé on Harvey Weinstein and the rise of the #MeToo movement, a new survey released by Women in Film suggests that Hollywood is making progress on addressing abuse and harassment.

Of 266 current and former film industry employees surveyed last month, 59% said they believe that the culture around abuse, harassment and misconduct in Hollywood has improved in the past year. While 46.2% of those surveyed still said they or someone they knew experienced abuse or misconduct in the past year, that’s a reduction of 33.7% from 2022’s survey.

Despite the improvement, Women in Film warned that abuse and misconduct “continue to be prevalent in our industry” and presented a series of anonymous quotes from respondents about the abuse they suffered:

• “I have experienced everything from discrimination to harassment in nearly every job I have held in the industry as well as witnessed it happen to multiple female friends of mine. I was fired from the first job I ever held after asking why my male counterpart was making more money than I was, was sexually assaulted on the first set I ever worked on, and was sent illicit photos from talent on a show I was working on. I strongly feel that #MeToo has done nothing except teach men how to hide their behavior better.”
• “At a networking event a man got my number, because he said he wanted to help me career wise. He then proceeded to ask me out for months though I told him I was not interested and was just at that event because it was a networking event. This happens at almost every ‘networking’ event. I hate networking.”
• “When I or any other woman would speak it was as if they heard nothing. And any suggestion given by a male, no matter how junior his position on set, was acknowledged.”

Among those surveyed, 95.4% of respondents identify as women, 1.9% as men and 2.7% identify as nonbinary or another gender. In addition, 1.1% of respondents identify as trans. In other results, 29% of respondents identify as people of color, 30% identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community and 40.5% say they have been affected by the current Hollywood work stoppages.

Women in Film urged those who have experienced abuse and harassment in Hollywood to call its help line. The resource was created in December 2017 to counter the lack of resources available to those abused on production sets. The WIF Help Line can be reached at 855-943-5463 on Mondays through Fridays between 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

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