Several of the male personalities at Fox News — Brit Hume, Chris Wallace, Geraldo Rivera — were sad to see Roger Ailes ousted, and had nothing but praise for him last week in the heat of sexual harassment allegations brought by Gretchen Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and several other women who worked for him. Despite the number of female accusers growing into double digits, the guys all rallied behind their boss. But I can’t help but wonder how they explain their public support of an alleged serial harasser to the women in their homes — their wives and daughters.
Surely, if any of the latter made claims like these against their employers, Brit/Chris/Geraldo would support their women against the injustices done to them in the workplace, right? Or is the boys-will-be-boys culture that Ailes built and seems to have encouraged, viewing women as sex objects both on and off the air, reflected in their home lives as well? If so, there are even more victims than we know of.
Lastly, did you notice how quickly the Murdochs moved to get Ailes out once Megyn Kelly revealed to Fox’s internal investigators how he had harassed her over the years? I guess it’s okay to have verbally abused an ousted former beauty queen whose ratings weren’t up to snuff (Carlson) or demoted a reporter because she wouldn’t sleep with a bureau chief (Rudi Bakhtiar), but a whole other problem when the accuser is your biggest primetime star (Kelly).