Special Report: A Cultural Turning Point On Sexual Harassment?
Victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual abuse and their supporters protest during a #MeToo march this month in Hollywood, Calif.
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Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images
It has been a little more than a year since President Trump, then candidate-Trump, faced furious criticism over the now-infamous Access Hollywood video featuring his comments about groping women. He subsequently faced a barrage of sexual harassment claims. While the moment sparked a national conversation about sexual harassment, it did not quash his presidential aspirations.
In the following months, sexual harassment remained in the news, with accusations at Fox News, lawsuits and the resignations of prominent TV personalities.
But this fall, the floodgates seemed to open. After revelations about movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, the hashtag #MeToowas born and more allegations surfaced in Hollywood, in sports, in business, in politics and at media organizations, including NPR. Accusations of sexual harassment are not new, but this year’s reactions and consequences have been different.
In a new hourlong special, “Sexual Harassment: A Moment of Reckoning,” Weekend Edition Sunday host Lulu Garcia-Navarro looks at the significance of this moment, as so many women and men go public with their stories. She explores why it’s happening now and whether it represents a cultural turning point.
Guests:
Wade Hankin, a 25-year-old man from Seattle who launched a partner hashtag to #metoo — #ihave — in a post in which he admitted his own inappropriate actions involving women and encouraged other men to do so as well.
Radio journalist Mary Beth Kirchner, who recently reported on Jackson Katz, an educator who has spent 27 years giving talks and workshops to boys and men on the dangers of “boys will be boys” attitudes.
Lin Farley, a journalist and author who helped popularize the term “sexual harassment” in the 1970s.
Kaitlin Prest, host of The Heart podcast, “an audio art project about intimacy and humanity.”
Cathy Young, contributing editor for Reason magazine, who wrote a recent Los Angeles Times column suggesting some offenders are being punished excessively.
Human resources consultant Laurie Ruettimann, who explains how organizations address sexual misconduct.
Out Of Bounds: From A Coma To 'Dancing With The Stars'
NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks with Victoria Arlen, who made it to the semifinals on Dancing with the Stars even though just two years ago she couldn’t walk.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:
How do you dance when you can’t feel your legs?
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “DANCING WITH THE STARS”)
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: (Singing) Everybody dance now.
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Live from Hollywood, this is “Dancing With The Stars.”
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: “Dancing With The Stars” Season 25.
VICTORIA ARLEN: Hi, I’m Victoria Arlen, and I am an ESPN host.
TOM BERGERON: Next on the floor…
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Victoria and Val.
BERGERON: Victoria and Val.
ARLEN: I’m ready to dance (laughter).
GARCIA-NAVARRO: This week in Out of Bounds, Victoria Arlen competed in the semifinals of “Dancing With The Stars.” The 23-year-old was diagnosed with two rare autoimmune conditions as a child. She was in a coma for four years and in a wheelchair for nearly a decade. She won a gold medal at the London Paralympics in 2012 before teaching herself how to walk and then dance again. Victoria Arlen joins me now from our studios in Culver City, Calif. Good morning.
ARLEN: Good morning.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: You were eliminated this past week. I’m sorry (laughter).
ARLEN: It’s OK. Yeah, I mean, obviously, that was not the plan. But all good things. And it was just an amazing ride for sure.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: You have an amazing story of recovery. You couldn’t walk until fairly recently. How do you go from being paralyzed to dancing on “Dancing With The Stars?”
ARLEN: I honestly – for me, when I was 10 years old, I wanted to be on the show. I fell in love with the show when it first premiered, and I’ve always just loved and been fascinated with dance. And my parents really made a promise that they would do everything they could to give me back all that was taken away from me when I got sick. And the biggest thing that was left were my legs.
And so we discovered a program called Project Walk that’s actually based out here in California. And my parents, being the epic humans they are, brought it to the East Coast, brought it to our hometown. And a year and a half ago, I took steps. And from there, you know, for me, with everything that I’ve gone through, when I started to walk, I was like, well, why not run? Why not dance?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But did you know how to dance? I mean, was it something that you were like – did you have a natural ability? Because it seems like going, you know, walking to dancing as well as you dance – that’s, like, a big leap.
ARLEN: It’s pretty crazy. I did not have dance – much dance experience. When I was 2, I did ballet, tap and jazz. But I think that was the beauty of it. And that was what made the season so special for my partner and I, for Val and I – is because we went out there each time on the dance floor and kind of redefined what was possible. And it wouldn’t have been possible without Val.
I mean, Val took this incredible leap and believed in me and gave me these tools in the choreography that really showed me what I was capable of but so many other people, as well. And so it’s pretty – it’s still pretty mind-blowing. I mean, our first day, just me turning, I fell over. And so the fact that we went from there to the top five is pretty crazy.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Val Chmerkovskiy, your partner in this, just in case people don’t know. So yeah. When you fell that first time, did you think maybe this was something that was going to be harder than you had thought?
ARLEN: I knew it was going to be challenging. I think (laughter) after our first day, I called my mom crying. And I said, it’s really hard to dance when you can’t feel your legs.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Can I ask you just about the mechanics of dancing when you can’t feel your legs? Is there anything that you need to do differently, I imagine, to make that work?
ARLEN: It’s definitely challenging. I mean, I think for Val and I, we had a lot of keywords that we used and a lot of, like, tappings. So when we would be doing ballroom, he would kind of say, OK, left. OK, right. Yeah, we’re going to turn. We’re going to change. And so it was a lot of keywords. And it was a lot of repetition to the point where you’re not even thinking about – or I’m not even thinking about where my legs are.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And who do you want to win?
ARLEN: Who do I want to win? I…
GARCIA-NAVARRO: (Laughter).
ARLEN: …You know, it’s, this whole season has been just absolutely spectacular. And, you know, for me…
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Come on (laughter).
ARLEN: …You know, I think it’s going to be a toss-up between Jordan Fisher and Lindsey Stirling. I think the two of them have been consistently amazing each and every week. I mean, everyone’s been amazing, but I really feel like it’s going to be a toss-up between the two of them.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Victoria Arlen, who is also a host and reporter for ESPN as well as a contestant on “Dancing With The Stars,” thank you so much.
ARLEN: Thank you.
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The Many Forms, Faces And Causes Of PTSD
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Post-traumatic stress disorder is often associated with combat, but trauma comes in many forms.
About 7 or 8 percent of people experience PTSD at some point in their lives, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The rate is higher for women than for men: about 10 percent compared with 4 percent. Experiencing sexual assault or child sexual abuse, or living through accidents, disaster or witnessing death can all be contributing factors, in addition to time in combat with the military.
NPR’s Weekend Edition wanted to hear from those people who have struggled with PTSD, but not because of the reasons we often hear about.
Michael Coleman says he faced stress on a daily basis as a social worker in North Carolina. He worked for the government investigating foster care in the state for 13 years.
“When you knock on someone’s door, they’re not happy to see you,” he tells NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro.
“There’s physical abuse or sexual abuse,” he says. “There’s pretty severe neglect in cases.”
He’s shown up to houses with kids bleeding; he’s interviewed kids with bruises at school. He had to visit “known drug houses,” where his knees would start shaking before he even got out of his car.
Coleman didn’t notice any symptoms of PTSD until after he quit that job to become a vocational counselor.
If someone asked him about his old job, he’d get emotional, he says, even at the bar with friends. “When you’re crying into your beer, you’re like, ‘Why is this happening?’ “
His new supervisor suggested seeing an employee assistance counselor after he would get emotional at work and have to go home early some days.
The idea of having PTSD didn’t even cross his mind.
“My father is a Vietnam vet. My mother is a refugee. I have been around military veterans all my life and never would associate their PTSD the way I would with me,” he says.
“I’ve never been through things like that, so once again it just never occurred to me.”
The counselor asked if he’d worked with people who experienced domestic violence: yes. Did he work with people who were sexually and physically abused? Yes. Did they experience PTSD? Yes.
” ‘Well, they weren’t veterans,’ ” Coleman remembers the counselor telling him. “Then she kind of turned it around on me, she goes, ‘Then why not you?’ That just hit me really heavy.”
He says he’s doing better now — “I’m comfortable where I’m at.”
Some of the symptoms Coleman talked about matched the “classic symptoms” of PTSD, Sandro Galea of the Boston University School of Public Health says.
Re-experiencing traumatic events; feeling both jumpy and withdrawn at the same time; avoiding reminders of his “time around the traumatic event.”
Galea says having “post-traumatic” as part of the condition’s name can be a little misleading.
“We know now that the lifetime experience before the trauma, the nature of the trauma itself, and what happens to you after the trauma — even though unrelated to trauma — all matter for whether you are going to get PTSD,” he explains.
Unrelated stress afterward can have an effect on the symptoms, he says.
It’s possible for most people to recover from PTSD with treatment — both cognitive behavioral therapy (talking) and medications have been shown to be effective.
But fewer than a third of people who could benefit from help actually get it, Galea says.
If you don’t know where to turn, he says a good first step is reaching out to a primary care doctor, who can connect you with the right mental health professional.
The goal of treatment, he says, is “helping the person suffering these symptoms [to] recognize the physiological stimuli, adapt to them, and move on with what the person would like to do.”
