Listen Up Wendy Williams! What’s Good for the Goose…

By Joyce Davis

The #Metoo movement hit Hollywood hard. Every week someone who we trusted and adored got caught up in the scandal. There were people that we thought would ever do something so vile who were outed by disgusting behavior that made us cringe. It was those in power with the power to make or break the careers of others that were unearthed doing the damage. To my recollection all the people outed were men.

I am a watcher of the Wendy Williams Show. She is one of my guilty pleasures of gossip entertainment news. I do not always agree with the way she does some things but after her husband cheated on her and had a baby with another woman I found a special place in my heart for her. She even used her voice on the Me Too Movement to speak out against Gilbert Gottfried groping her on her show. She supported the movement by using her voice and her show when some other shows wanted to keep it quiet.

Recently on her show she had Gary Owens as a guest who came to talk about the movie he is in. From the beginning of the show; which is called hot topics, she flirted with her guess who was in the greenroom by showing just a little more cleavage and raising her skirt to show just a little more thigh. Gary is at the moment going through a divorce himself. He is what we call “down with the swirl”. Which is a white man who dates someone outside his race. In the next segment he made his appearance on the show and his body language was pretty much the same as Comey when he publicly met Trump. He seemed very uncomfortable and they had not said hi yet. She proceeded in the interview to tell him how fine his body was and how on the movie set of “Think Like a Man” She was attracted to him but because they were both with spouses she could not act on it. He grew more and more uncomfortable. She even asked him out for coffee after the interview. He paused and she got a bit defensive and said fine let’s talk about your movie. He reluctantly said he could make any declarations on public tv as he is still going through his divorce.

I saw this as clear sexual harassment. He had to be there and he needed her support to promote the movie. If he in any way upset his host in front of her adoring fans the movie he is there to promote is dead in the water to her fans. At the moment it was her who had all the power. She could influence the way her audience felt by saying negative things about the movie.
I in no way want to cancel Wendy Williams or have her taken off the air but I do want to understand why women get away with sexual harassment. Is it because we twirl our hair and pretend we are innocent? I think of when Dianna Ross grabbed Lil Kim’s boob at the Grammy’s one year and every comment I read about it celebrated what she did. Maybe they worked it out backstage but the look on Kim’s face was shock and surprise. We women do things and think we get away with it because face it we are the ones who usually get harassed.

I am embarrassed to say I contemplated not naming names because I in no way want to be responsible for someone I adore being reprimanded for bad behavior but in the end I thought who stands up for men? I am sure no one in the industry will pay attention to me concerning this but it begs the question: is what’s good for the goose good for the gander? Why do we not have the same set of rules? Why do we protect women but not protect men?

Addendum

Last night was a rough night of sleep. I was very disappointed in myself. As a victim of sexual assault you always hope that someone would use their voice to protect you or say that they see what you are going through. I saw something and my only course of action was to write about it. Instead of allowing my voice on the subject to be heard I folded. I was fearful of any backlash from a person who has a bigger platform than I do. I did not think I would be able to handle it. I thought the person is a woman and women have to fight so much harder to get on TV which is a man dominated industry. I also took into account that she is a black woman so why would you use your voice to say something mean about another black woman. All night I tussled with myself and I came to one conclusion. The only reason for not speaking out is if the story is not true. The rest was me being a coward. It has nothing to do with being mean when the truth is not nice or mean it is just the truth.

The thought of someone using their platform to abuse people should be enough to speak out, period. I should have also taken into account that this is behavior that is being taught as an example of a woman who is a boss. So women who look up to her as a boss will objectify men in this manner and think that it is okay. It is not okay.

It is not like I am on TV with a bullhorn screaming it out. In my heart if one person sees and says this helps me see something differently then that makes me happy. Whatever backlash I have made up in my head I am ready for. Being a coward is harder because it is self-backlash I have to deal with and I just can’t keep fighting myself. The ‘see something say something’ is for people like me who find excuses to be quiet. No more of that…

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