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My American Dream

When I saw The Little Mermaid at six-years-old, my pint-sized, budding-artist soul was blown away. I started filling my school notebooks with doodles of Disney characters and quickly decided I wanted to work in animation when I grew up. So when I landed my “dream job” as an intern at Pixar at age 25, I thought for sure I’d made it in life. But it wasn’t long before I became engaged in my own mental game of tug of war about the place.

I can’t speak for all women who strive for success in the U.S., but I can tell you that my own red-hot pursuit of the American Dream had little to do with gaining power, influence or excessive wealth. Although my career goals were high reaching for a young woman from humble roots in Rust-Belt Pennsylvania, my core motivations were always pretty simple: I fiercely wanted to earn and maintain a sense of respect from others.

Greener than the Appalachians in the summertime, I thought if I proved myself as a competent professional than I’d no longer have to worry about being disregarded, degraded or oversimplified as little more than the sum of my feminine parts. That if I worked hard enough to land a seat with an admired company in a thriving part of the country, life would become kinder and more edifying to me than it had in the past.

But regardless of how proficient at hoop jumping I became –– no matter how many degrees, awards, performance bonuses or film credits I racked up –– that gracious, gratifying and more dignified version of a better life always seemed to evade me. And the disappointment of being so wrong about the world we live in cut so deep it nearly split my resolve in two.

The Whistleblower’s Conundrum

On behalf of all my sisters who must maintain anonymity to remain safe and stay gainfully employed, I’ve decided to come forward bearing my #MeToo truth with my full name attached.

But the choice to share a thorough account of my most triggering experiences with gender discrimination, sexism, harassment and sexual abuse –– both before and during my time at Pixar –– was not one I made lightly. In most of the below accounts, I’m admittedly not proud of the ways I handled things (or rather failed to handle them), and I don’t get joy in making myself a potential target for the #MeToo backlash movement of dismissers and victim-shamers. Nonetheless, I’ve decided to share an intensely personal overview of my sexual trauma history in a very public way, because I believe it provides the kind of context that men (and even some women) need to understand the true gravity of our insidious problems with sexism as a species.

I prefer to think of this article as a pro-equality manifesto instead of an anti-misogyny rant or an attack on masculinity. I have faith that my candid testimony –– as seen through an unapologetically female lens –– can serve as a cautionary tale, a symbolic case study and an emblematic catalyst. I hope this exposé will help to inspire companies and communities (big or small) to shift their cultures from places that safeguard sexist behaviors to principled spaces where men and women are honored and supported equally.

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