Sunny Hostin has opened up about her experience with sexual harassment in the workplace, revealing that she had to “bind [her] breasts” in order to get a job based on her qualifications, not her physical appearance.
On this morning’s episode of The View, the Hot Topics panel discussed Joy Behar‘s #MeToo essay for Air Mail, which details how she dealt with sexual harassment as a teacher in the late 1960s.
“I think young people need to read it, in particular, because I’m always worried that folks will take for granted the fact that we’re standing on the shoulders of people like you, of people like Gloria Steinem, of people who made this possible,” Ana Navarro told Behar.
She continued, “When you were coming up in the workplace, even us at our age — at least me — you didn’t have anywhere to go to, you didn’t have anywhere to appeal to, you didn’t have a structure, an institution. You didn’t know there was an HR department. It just kind of came with the territory of being a woman in the workplace.”
While Hostin said she had “options” like an HR department in the early days of her legal career, she explained why she “wouldn’t dare” go to them with her concerns.
“When I was coming up at the Justice Department and when I was coming up in law firms … we had options, but I wouldn’t dare use them so as not to be black-balled out of a position because the structure was a patriarchy,” she said.
The former prosecutor even had to change her physical appearance when she was interviewing for jobs, which was long before she underwent breast reduction surgery in 2022.
“I recall so many interviews as a young lawyer where the men never looked at my face. They just looked straight at my chest,” she said. “So I started binding my breasts so that I could get a job [based] on my qualifications.”
Attempting to lighten the mood a little bit, Behar quipped, “The short ones are even more dangerous because they’re really eye level to your boobs.”
The View airs on weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.
If you or someone you know needs to reach out about sexual abuse or assault, RAINN is available 24/7 at 800-656-HOPE (4673), or online at RAINN.org.