Tiffany Haddish Just Called Out Sexual Harassment in Comedy
Tiffany Haddish is having a great run lately: Girls Trip, brilliantly hosting SNL, gearing up for a national standup tour, publishing a memoir. But it hasn’t been a totally smooth journey to get to where she is now. In her new book, The Last Black Unicorn, she opens up about obstacles she faced in a chapter about sexual harassment in the comedy world. It’s a timely excerpt, given the dominant cultural conversation around sexual misconduct, harassment, and assault in the entertainment industry that’s taken down a few former power players recently. However, it must be noted that this is a conversation that’s disproportionally stemmed from the experiences of white women, even though black women, like Anita Hill and #MeToo founder Tarana Burke, have often—and thanklessly—been at the forefront of the movement.
Haddish’s new memoir details her experience trying to make it in the male-dominated world of comedy. Unsurprisingly, there was a hell of a lot of harassment that went on.
“I can’t tell you how many promoters tried to tell me that to get on stage, I had to get on my back,” Haddish wrote, according to People. Her reply? Always “Hell no!”
In a conversation with People about her memoir—and about being a woman in the comedy world—Haddish revealed, “It seemed like everybody wanted to get in my panties. It was constant defending and battling. These men will try you every single time.”
More troubling? Things still haven’t gotten much better. “It’s like hazing,” she added. “Once they figure out you’re strong and you don’t roll like that, then they start treating you like a colleague.”
It’s just yet another example of the sexism and harassment that women face across all industries. Here’s to hoping that dudes in comedy realize sooner rather than later that all of their colleagues—yes, female colleagues are colleagues too!—deserve to be treated with respect and decency. And hazing is never OK.
Related Stories:
–#MeToo Founder Tarana Burke on What Needs to Happen After the Hashtag
–Tiffany Haddish Just Made ‘Saturday Night Live’ History—But It’s Long Overdue
–Why We Still Need Anita Hill