When the female staffers at The A.V. Club participated in “A Day Without A Woman” earlier this year, we did so with full recognition of the fact that not every woman could do so without negative repercussions. We also took this action with the support of our male colleagues, who promoted female-led interviews and articles in solidarity with women across the world in our absence. We did this from our “liberal echo chamber“ here in a historically pro-union city, but being surrounded by pop culture obsessives and progressives doesn’t always ensure that your beliefs won’t be mocked by people who completely miss the fucking point.
That was the case for Rosette Laursen, a former assistant at a Hollywood talent agency. As Jezebel reports, Laursen emailed her boss back in March to let him know she would participate in ”A Day Without A Woman,” the unofficial national day of (in)action. She planned to spend the day “writing, as my career goal is to be a TV Writer, and unfortunately writers’ rooms are very dominantly male, even in 2017.”
Laursen was the only woman in her office; her boss was Michael Einfeld of Einfeld Management, which has reportedly represented Hillary Swank, Brendan Fraser, and Phyllis Diller. Having a female employee and female clientele did nothing to shore up support in Einfeld, who went on a profanity-laden, sexist rant via email, threatening to withhold bonuses and “never [hire] a girl again.” Please note that this was sent from his iPhone, so please excuse the misogyny.
Einfeld continued to lose his shit in a couple more messages, in which he complained that because women are “considered diverse,” they’re “being shoved in as writer and directors.” This developing gynocracy meant that poor guys like “Zach who is a Jewish male is being pushed out.” Because that’s how things work in the film and TV industry–you have to trade someone from one underrepresented group for another. Apparently, Hollywood follows a form of the Pauli exclusion principle: No two people from marginalized groups can occupy the same position that could be held by some mediocre white guy.
Of course, Einfeld didn’t have the nerve to show his misogynistic ass to Laursen; this was a case of him sending his tirade to a group email that included his former assistant, instead of the two or three fellow members of the He-Man Woman Haters Club in his office. When he realized she had seen his sexist bullshit, he sent her some creepy texts in an effort to win her back.
As you might have guessed, Laursen wasn’t swayed by Einfeld’s “offers.” She quit the job, even though one of her male co-workers assured her that being called an “Uppity selfish Cunt” was just “a joke.” Laursen eventually tried to take legal action against Einfeld, but she says she was stonewalled by her former boss. That’s when she went to the court of public opinion, a.k.a Facebook, where she wrote up the whole story.
Einfeld—whom she initially refers to as “Jorkle,” presumably in an effort to protect his identity—comes off even worse in the social media post. Laursen writes that even though “sometimes he was actually really cool and funny and nice,” Einfeld frequently used racist and ableist slurs, which he tried to couch as “just joking.” He hasn’t commented on Laursen’s or Jezebel’s posts; he’s presumably working himself into a lather over email again.
[via Jezebel, which, like The A.V. Club, is owned by Univision Communications.]