Time’s Up on sexual harassment and inequality in the health care industry.
The powerhouse women’s organization, which some of Hollywood’s biggest stars started in 2018 in solidarity with #MeToo to fight sexual harassment and promote pay parity and diversity in the workplace, is launching Time’s Up Healthcare.
The coalition, started by female physicians, aims to shine a light on issues of gender inequity and harassment that affect all health care workers, from doctors and nurses to physician’s assistants, pharmacists and medical students.
“We know that gender inequality and sexual harassment affect all of us,” Dr. Dara Kass, a founding member of the Time’s Up Healthcare movement, told MarketWatch. “At its core, it’s a workplace initiative to unite the entire health care workforce and empower women to be unapologetic advocates addressing what is the largest growing sector of the American economy.”
Academic medicine has the highest rate of gender and sexual harassment in the health care industry, with up to 70 percent of female physicians and as many as half of female medical students reporting incidents of sexual harassment. Female faculty are more than 2.5 times more likely than male faculty to perceive gender-based discrimination in academia.
The gender pay gap is also an issue, research suggests. One study at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine found that female faculty can miss out on as much as $500,000 over the course of their career.
Global annual health spending reached $7.1 trillion in 2015 and is slated to increase to $8.7 trillion by 2020.
Last October, the University of Southern California said it would pay a $215 million settlement to alleged victims of sexual abuse and harassment by a school gynecologist. Dozens of women made accusations against Dr. George Tyndall, claiming abuse between 1988 and 2016.
Tyndall has denied the allegations and was fired by USC in 2017.
The settlement, filed in federal court earlier this month, will also require USC to implement reforms such as background checks for anyone who will work with patients in the USC Student Health Center and giving female students the option to see a female doctor.
However, the Los Angeles Times reported that lawyers representing more than 500 women suing USC in state court said the amount was inadequate and allows the university “to avoid embarrassing public disclosures about administrators’ bungling of decades of misconduct complaints against Tyndall.”
Kass says pay parity and getting more women into leadership positions is another part of the mission of Time’s Up Healthcare. Women comprise 80 percent of the medical workforce, yet account for just 11 percent of executive roles, according to Time’s Up.
The Time’s Up Foundation has expanded its reach beyond entertainment and into industries including advertising, hospitality and technology to address concerns about safe workplaces with equitable compensation for women and men. It also supports the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, administered by the National Women’s Law Center Fund, which connects those who experience sexual misconduct in the workplace — particularly those with low incomes — with lawyers.
It’s raised more than $21 million from donations around the country since its inception last year. Contributions have ranged from $5 to $500,000 each from Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep and Jennifer Aniston, along with $1.5 million from Mark Wahlberg — which he donated after it was revealed that he earned $1.5 million for reshoots on the movie “All the Money in the World” while his co-star Michelle Williams was paid less than $1,000 for her reshoots.