Veteran journalist Katie Couric admitted that her career has been marred by misogynistic, sexually-aggressive comments. One bone-headed CNN executive reportedly told her that her success hinged on her cup size.
The gross encounter occurred in the early days of her career.
“She’s successful because of her hard work, intelligence and breast size,” the executive told a crowded room.
Culture has changed dramatically in just a few years; it would be shocking if a major executive spoke so cavalierly today. The #MeToo movement is holding powerful men and women accountable for their lewd and criminal behavior.
“I’ve been very fortunate in terms of not being subjected to a lot of sexual misconduct, but certainly I have been subjected to widely held attitudes about women, about compartmentalizing women,” Couric said Thursday, speaking at the Proctor & Gamble’s Cincinnati headquarters.
The petite, 61-year-old blond joked that her tombstone will read “Perky No More.”
Couric was one the many women speaking at the #WeSeeEqual forum. The entertainment and media industry has been particularly hard hit by the #MeToo movement. A swath of high-profile men, from Harvey Weinstein to Matt Lauer has been brought down by serious allegations.
Couric described the #MeToo movement as “a long-dormant volcano that’s erupting.”
However, Couric began sticking up for herself long before the movement began. She eventually confronted the CNN executive who made the crude comment about her breasts, forcing him to come to her “dripping with apologies.”
She also shed light this week on why she quit working with Yahoo.
“I would say to the Yahoo folks, ‘Could we please do a newsletter? I’ll push out everyone’s content,’” Couric said.
“They didn’t put it on the front page or they didn’t know how to — even now, they don’t have very good distribution… They didn’t really know how to market things properly. They didn’t know how to take quality and make it scalable.”
(Source: Recode, Daily Mail)