Jo Brand Perfectly Silences All-Male Panel After Sexual Harassment Joke

By : On : 04 Nov 2017 17:43
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Comedian and TV host, Jo Brand, expertly shut down a panel of four men as she presented current affairs panel show, Have I Got News For You.

During the show, Jo was forced to step in and remind the panel ‘no case of sexual harassment was insignificant’ after a comment made by team captain, Ian Hislop.

Also appearing on Friday night’s show was team captain Paul Merton, as well as journalist Quentin Letts and actor Miles Jupp.

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As more allegations of sexual harassment in Hollywood and in UK politics came to light this week, the popular BBC current affairs programme understandably began discussing that fact MP Michael Fallon had stepped down as Defence Secretary.

Fallon has this week been accused of sexually harassing Julia Hartley Brewer by allegedly putting his hands on her knee.

Hislop asked ‘what else Fallon had done’, as Hartley Brewer had said she didn’t care about the incident.

To which Letts said:

Hartley Brewer, big strong girl.

Jo, clearly and understandably unimpressed, cutting in added:

She’s a woman Quentin, not a girl.

BBC

During the programme, Letts also came to the conclusion the Westminster situation ‘wasn’t a sex scandal because there was no sex’. Wow.

And that wasn’t the worst of it, Hislop described an incident of harassment where an MP took his personal trainer to the cinema as ‘not some high level crime, not compared to Putin or Trump’.

Brand told Hislop:

If I can just say, as the only representative of the female gender here today… I know it’s not high level, but it doesn’t have to be high level for women to feel under siege in somewhere like the House of Commons.

And actually, for women, if you’re constantly being harassed, even in a small way, that builds up and it wears you down.

Well said.

The audience began applauding, and Jo added: ‘Sorry, I thought I was on Question Time for a minute.’

Hislop then said:

I do point out, with four blokes sitting around you, we’re hardly in the position to say ‘that’s rubbish’.

Here’s the moment, see for yourself:

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As viewers watched the episode, which aired on BBC One on Friday evening, they took to Twitter to thank Jo Brand for ‘standing up for that subtle and pervasive undermining of women in the workplace’.

Another added: ‘Jo Brand! Switching it up & dumbfounding the patriarchy with reality. Speak truth to power!’

Leader of the UK Women’s Equality Party, Sophie Walker, tweeted: ‘Presents one woman explaining sexual harassment to four white men who still think it’s bantz.’

And The Times’ Caitlin Moran said: ‘YES YES YES YES. Enjoy: faces of men learning something.’

Fallon resigned on Wednesday saying he had ‘fallen below the high standards’ required of the armed forces.

A third allegation was made against him this week, after he apologised for putting his hand on Hartley-Brewer’s knee during a Tory party conference 15 years ago.

He was accused of making lewd remarks to his Cabinet colleague Andrea Leadsom, allegations he denies.