Donald Trump had seemingly sided with Roger Ailes over sexual harassment allegations, saying during a recent interview that it was “very sad” that former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson and others would accuse Ailes.
Now, Trump says if his own daughter experienced the kind of workplace harassment some women from Fox News say they’ve suffered, he says he “would like to think she would find another career or find another company if that was the case,” USA Today reports.
Trump had previously commented on Ailes that, “I can tell you that some of the women that are complaining, I know how much he’s helped them.”
But that contradiction is exactly the reason why some women may have stayed in an oppressive work environment: For many women, decisions about whether to stay with a job involve a precarious cost-benefit analysis to decide if it’s worth it to leave an abusive situation where they may nevertheless advance their careers.
Advocates for workplace reform would argue that it should be on the abuser, not the victim, to find a new job. And for many women, if perhaps not Ivanka Trump, quitting a job without a new one lined up is simply not a financially viable option.
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