From the course: How to Become a Purpose-Driven Journalist

A light-bulb moment

From the course: How to Become a Purpose-Driven Journalist

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A light-bulb moment

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- It's been over a year since the Me Too movement began and I said on the air that women cannot achieve full equality in the workplace until there is a reckoning and a taking of responsibility. And I meant that. I think I was one of the first people to use that word reckoning. And I think that reckoning is taking place, it's still taking place. And I think corporations have woken up. After our co-host resigned I said, "This has to stop, this has to end!" And a longtime producer at 60 Minutes called me and said, "I burst out into tears when you said that. "That was one of the most powerful moments "in CBS News history". And this is from a producer at 60 Minutes, who's been here for decades and to hear her say that meant an incredible amount to me because we have to speak the words out loud that it has to stop and it has to end and then the corporations have to do the follow through. And I think we have seen corporations make changes. Mandatory sexual assault training, new HR managers to deal with this, investigative reports, while they have not been transparent in all cases, they pushed for and people have pushed for transparency and a taking of accountability. I just so firmly believe that we can't get ahead until this is fixed. I so firmly believe that. It just so happened I had been working with this fabulous investigative producer here at CBS News Jennifer Janisch, six months about sexual assault at the Air Force Academy. We had just gone out to Colorado, spoken with female cadets, I mean at the Air Force Academy. These are women who run 6 1/2 minute miles, who got into the Air Force Academy, who are going to be fighter pilots, who had been raped and sexually assaulted and then when they tried to tell their superiors, they had been ignored or faced harassment again. These women who have more strength in their bones than I will ever have broke down sobbing. And I thought this is it. It was like a light bulb moment to me. I said, "If this is doing, "what this is done to these women "and they are going to leave our military "because of this, how can any of us ever get "to positions of power?" And it came over me, I thought, for years I've been writing about why women haven't reached the top echelons of power, I said maybe women aren't leaning in enough to use Sheryl Sandberg's phrase, I said well, maybe it's because women aren't getting paid enough. And then it sort of came to me based on my reporting and the movement we were in, women were leaving top positions of power because they were being systematically harassed. That's why it has to end. That's the problem with what's been happening that has stunted our growth. It's not that we're not educated enough because you know what, women crashed through the glass ceiling 30 years ago. Women are getting more college degrees, more master's degrees, more PhDs than men are. So it's not the lack of education, it's not the skillset, it's something else. And I firmly believe that part of it is that women have been systematically harassed in the workplace. That's what's going to change and that's why I firmly believe that the 21st century is going to be the century of women.

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