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Not Just Toxic Masculinity: Income Inequality Also Drives Sexual Abuse in
the Workplace
Natasha Lennard
December 12 2017, 8:00 a.m.
When Matt Lauer was fired from the "Today" show after allegations of sexual
misconduct, news reports alleged that his lawyers were working on a plan to
get the disgraced host a $30 million payout from NBC - the remainder of his
$20 million a year salary up until the end of 2018. For a vastly wealthy
serial harasser to believe he is owed tens of millions more dollars seemed a
galling manifestation of the very entitlement underpinning the predatory
behavior for which he was fired.
With powerful men in the media and elsewhere being dethroned amid abuse
allegations, payouts to predators frequently follow suit, playing a major
role in the current public reckoning with patriarchal power. But receiving
or, in Lauer's case, seeking a massive payout also speaks to an
under-discussed facet of the wave of sexual abuse allegations: A light is
being shed on the role of entitled wealth, as well as toxic masculinity, in
producing a dangerous imbalance of power.
A light is being shed on the role of entitled wealth, as well as toxic
masculinity, in producing a dangerous imbalance of power.
All too often, the vagaries of employment law and corporate culture are
pitted against efforts to seek justice for victims and consequences for
perpetrators. Fox News paid out sexual harassers Bill O'Reilly and late
chair Roger Ailes around $25 million and $40 million, respectively.
Payouts and rewards like these, however, are a consistent part of modern
American corporate life, found not only among the media or on issues of
sexual harassment. Consider the rewards heaped on Wall Street executives
following a financial crisis for which they bear substantial blame. In 2008,
banks used taxpayer bailout money to pay top executives $1.6 billion in
salaries, bonuses, and various benefits like stock options and the use of
company jets.
"This is the Wall Street concept of 'fuck you money'," Alexis Goldstein,
senior policy analyst for Americans for Financial Reform, told me. "When
you're so rich, you can walk around and do whatever you want without fear of
repercussions; this is exactly the sort of power some people chase, as
something to aspire to." Goldstein noted that President Donald Trump is the
example-in-chief: a man of vast wealth whose vile actions were rewarded with
a presidency.
NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 29: Workers break down the outside portrait of the
set of NBC's Today Show, November 29, 2017 in New York City. It was
announced on Wednesday morning that long time Today Show host Matt Lauer had
been fired for sexual misconduct. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Workers break down the outside portrait of the set of NBC's Today Show,
Nov. 29, 2017, in New York.
Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
It was a relief, then, to learn that Lauer will not receive a payout. A
senior NBC source told CNN that the host "will not be paid past his last day
of work." But we should be careful before considering this a sea-change.
NBC's response to Lauer is not a challenge to toxic male entitlement, but an
explicit refusal to reckon with historic institutional complicity - two
problems which must be faced together if we are to take on patriarchal
oppression and sexual violence.
In comparison to Fox News, NBC seemed to claim the moral high ground in
refusing to reward a powerful predator with further millions. But to deny
the payout, the network must rely on a legal rationale in which they claim
previous ignorance to Lauer's years of misconduct.
NBC News reported that the reason Lauer will receive no settlement is that
he was fired "for cause," thus nullifying the network's obligation to pay
him through the end of his contract. This complicates the idea that NBC's
decision is primarily a moral one. In order for the former host to be fired
"for cause," NBC must maintain that his misconduct was unknown to the
company, at least when it negotiated the contract.
"If they already knew about it and tolerated it," explained Samuel
Estreicher, professor of law at New York University and director of its
Center for Labor and Employment Law, "it takes away from the cause concept
as a justification for withholding compensation owed, as opposed to simply
firing the person." An employee generally cannot be denied compensation for
services rendered based on behavior that, up until that point, the company
has known about and permitted or countenanced.
So while rewarding Lauer a $30 million payout would be unjust indeed, NBC's
ability to deny the payout is predicated on the company's claim to ignorance
regarding his years of predatory and harassing behavior. The network claims
that, before receiving the detailed complaint that led to Lauer's firing,
they had found no evidence and received no other complaints of the host's
wrongdoing.
Several women, however, told Variety that their complaints about Lauer to
executives "fell on deaf ears," with one former reporter alleging that
executives had "protected the shit out of Matt Lauer." The idea that NBC
management knew nothing until last week buoys a "bad apple" narrative when a
structural one is needed.
NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 19: Advertisements for Fox News and Bill O'Reilly stand
in the windows outside of the News Corp. and Fox News headquarters in
Midtown Manhattan, April 19, 2017 in New York City. Fox News television
personality Bill O'Reilly's future at the network is uncertain following
numerous claims of sexual harassment and subsequent legal settlements.
(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Advertisements for Fox News and Bill O'Reilly stand in the windows outside
of the News Corp. and Fox News headquarters on April 19, 2017, in New York.
Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
It's a double-edged sword. When a predator like O'Reilly is paid out, his
misconduct is seemingly rewarded; when a settlement is denied in a case like
Lauer's, the network evades responsibility as a point of law. In either
case, it's important to remember that the only reason these men would be
potentially entitled to such huge payouts is because they were paid so much
in the first place.
The average anchor salary at NBC is around $67,500 and Lauer was earning $28
million. With the gender pay gap persisting across the media, injustice is
already written into the DNA of the corporation and the industry. Whatever
NBC executives did in fact know about Lauer's history of predation, there's
little doubt that his position as a lucrative but large investment for the
company played a role in enabling his behavior, or at least letting it be
overlooked for years. Only very few top executives and talent, for example,
have offices fitted with buttons under their desks to close and lock their
doors from the inside - a mechanism Lauer used to harass without fear of
interruption.
Lauer's desk button took on the air of a Bond villain detail, but such
"panic buttons" are not that unusual - at least not among people who make
tens of millions of dollars. As a New York-based mechanical engineer told
Architectural Digest, "In a high-end office for, say, a bank like JPMorgan,
or for the high-end executives in other industries, it's not crazy to have
the ability to lock the door from your desk," he noted, citing the potential
for a violent attack. It might not be a button with perverted designs, but
it is nonetheless symbolic of vast power imbalance - of who gets protected
and who does not.
By elevating women to high-power positions with "fuck you" money, we only
address one aspect of toxic entitlement.
With the so-called #MeToo moment orbiting largely around the rich and
powerful, the putative solution of elevating more women to high-power
positions has been highlighted as a redress. "We already know how to reduce
sexual harassment at work, and the answer is actually pretty simple: Hire
and promote more women," wrote Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev in the
introduction to their Harvard Business Review study, which showed how sexual
harassment "flourishes in workplaces where men dominate in management and
women have little power." There have already been calls for Lauer's
replacement on "Today" to be a woman or women. But by elevating women to
high-power positions with "fuck you" money, we only address one aspect of
toxic entitlement.
Lauer's career may be over, but until we do away with "fuck you" money
altogether - by which I mean extreme wealth inequality - toxic entitlement
with which the Weinsteins and O'Reillys of the world have acted will remain
a scourge against which we struggle, rather than a thing of the past. The
problem is not a byproduct of power imbalances but an operation of them. The
corporate executives now promising structural change around sexual
harassment might be willing to fire predators and implement better policies,
but they're not going to challenge a system that provides them with their
"fuck you" money, too.