There have been decades of jokes about the Hollywood casting couch, a euphemistic term for the way actresses—well, almost always actresses—are encouraged to do sexual favors in exchange for a role or a big break. But as more women speak out about their experience of sexual harassment or even rape at the hands of powerful men in the industry, the casting-couch jokes aren’t allowed to seem so funny anymore.
Now Ashley Judd has become the latest woman to speak out powerfully about her experience of sexual harassment in Hollywood. In an interview with Variety, Judd said that an unnamed studio mogul “groomed” her, making advances step by step until he asked her to watch him take a shower. Not only that, but at a gathering with other actresses, Judd says she realized that this same high-powered man had made similar advances to all of them—including the shower request.
“And by the way,” Judd adds, “I’ve never been offered a movie by that studio. Ever.”
While saying that she blamed herself for a long time for what happened, Judd speaks out emphatically about the victim-blaming that often occurs after sexual harassment:
And she says that, even though it was a man who harassed her, this is not always a problem of men as aggressors and women as victims:
Variety also published a piece today about the larger trend of women speaking out against sexism in the industry. In it, Gwyneth Paltrow describes the outrage of her father, Bruce Paltrow, upon learning that his daughter was being paid the same as a male star without the same experience. “It can be painful,” Gwyneth says. “Your salary is a way to quantify what you’re worth. If men are being paid a lot more for doing the same thing, it feels shitty.”
With the Tumblr called Shit People Say to Women Directors still going strong with stories of sexism in the industry, and more famous women than ever speaking out about gender issues that matter, 2015 really does seem to be a breakthrough year for women in Hollywood. And yet, stories of harassment like Judd’s are still rarely told, in part due to the culture of victim-blaming she addresses. Light is being shed. But stories like Judd’s make it clear how much is still left in the shadows.