Former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson spoke to Business Insider about what advice she'd giver her twenty-year-old self. In 2016, Carlson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News founder Roger Ailes. Carlson's allegations led to his resignation and a $20 million settlement. The following is a transcript of the video.
Gretchen Carlson: I like to think of myself as a reformed perfectionist, and the way that you become that is by taking more risks. And taking those risks, I wish I would have done more earlier on in my career because what you learn from taking the risk is that you become a more unique person in the end and even in television you know trying to do something a little bit more out of the box instead of trying to be so much like that anchor mode, it took me a while to actually have the courage to take those risks just professionally, so that's the biggest advice that I could give to my younger self or to really anyone not even in the TV business but just in any aspect of their life.
I have a 12-year-old son and a 14-year-old daughter and I've seen my daughter especially exhibit that bravery and telling me that she did what she did and standing up for herself because she saw her mom do it. And in the end, that's what we all want for our children. We want to be able to pass along that gift of courage and I want that for other parents out there. It's why I wrote the book. I mean I hope they'll pass it along to their children as well, especially high school and college-age kids. This is where it starts. We have to raise our kids in equal fashion and give our kids the same opportunities and especially our boys, to be raised to respect women, not only in the home but when they get into the workplace then they exhibit that same amount of respect for their female colleagues. It's essential to stop this harassment cycle.