I read both the original Jezebel article AND the entire response letter. The response letter was extremely disturbing. I actually think that the Women Employees' Response Letter is a stronger indication of the sexism of the Daily Show than anything that I read in the Jezebel article.  I agree with those who think it would have been CAREER SUICIDE for any of the women who currently work at The Daily Show to decline to sign that letter. (By sign, I mean put their name on the online copy of the letter.) The very presence of that letter reflects a culture of subtle intimidation. The names of those women are now on a public list claiming that Jon Stewart - THEIR BOSS - is wonderful and non-sexist. Maybe Glenn Beck can follow Stewart's lead and have his black employees - all two of them - write about how much he just LOVES black people.  It was the first thing that I thought – that the letter was a brilliant piece of coercive propaganda. No employee should ever feel pressured (directly or indirectly) by agents of their employer to sign a letter claiming his or her current employer has never been guilty of discrimination. I hope the women who signed that letter realize that if they have experienced discrimination or if they experience discrimination IN THE FUTURE, and if they ever then want to file a discrimination suit against Stewart or the Daily Show that this letter will be used as evidence in court against them.  That’s the ultimate purpose of that letter: to preemptively prevent lawsuits and to control the current female employees. Those women just signed a document giving the men who work at The Daily Show free reign to be as sexist as they want because the women have already claimed IN WRITING that sexism at the show doesn't exist. Those boys can have lots of fun now because the women they work with just signed their rights away.  The intimidation would have been subtle, but very real. The existence of the letter and signatures is evidence of this. What would have happened to a woman employee who refused to sign that letter? She would have been told that it was fine that there was no pressure, but her name would be discussed with the producers and the legal department as a potential problem and she would be dismissed within two years. Not too soon because it would be too obvious. But she wouldn't last. Women aren't stupid. Every woman who signed that letter knew that it was an illusion that she could have chosen not to sign it. The women will now claim that they were not pressured to sign the letter. They have to. It's interesting that there is no reference to the women who refused to sign the letter. That's because THEY DON'T EXIST. The kinds of women who would have refused to sign that letter had already been fired or had left the show.  In fact, this is ingenious - and evil - new corporate policy. Maybe some lower-level BP employees, who are trying to hold onto jobs in a bad economy, can write a letter claiming that BP really, really cares about the environment. Really. That would be really convincing, too. Hey, maybe some of the lower-level employees at Goldman Sachs can write letters talking about how fiscally responsible their employer is.  Basically, the letter was the equivalent of George Bush having Condoleeza Rice come out during his administration to sign a letter about how much he respected Black women. She wouldn't have been able to refuse, and she was one of the most powerful women in the world. What is a production assistant at a tv show during a recession going to do when somebody asks her to sign a letter like that? She signs. She has to.  I’m an African American woman so I’m imagining a policy in which racist companies that have driven out people of color get the remaining people of color to write a letter to the media saying that the company isn’t racist. If they don’t sign, they’re in line for the chopping block. Sexist companies can do the same with women of all races. This is a scary concept and legally airtight. How can you file a suit against a company after signing such a document? You can't. At least, I can feel fairly confident that no black women - 1 at most - signed the Stewart letter because I can't imagine the Daily Show actually hiring a black woman to do anything.  What would have been convincing is if WOMEN WHO ARE NOT CURRENTLY ON STEWART’S/THE DAILY SHOW’S PAYROLL, but who had a good experience working with the men there wrote a letter like this. They didn’t.  The original Jezebel article had some pretty convincing evidence, though nothing as convincing as the letter. The Daily Show could have responded by really investigating its gender politics and policies. Instead, it sent out the women employees to defend the boys who now have no reason to question their behavior and have been given carte blanche BY THE WOMEN THEMSELVES to be even more sexist in the future. The most disturbing part of the letter is when they say that the Jezebel article is scaring away young women by discussing sexism. Actually, experiencing SEXISM itself is much scarier than reading about it. If I were a young woman, being pressured to sign that letter would have been MUCH scarier than reading the Jezebel article. Apparently the women who work at the Daily Show think that sweeping sexism under the rug is the best way to deal with it. Congrats. Mission accomplished.  Olivia Munn is also a problem for The Daily Show’s claim that there is no sexism in their workplace. Munn is very pretty, but she is not very funny. At all. And I’m not one of those people who thinks pretty women can’t be funny. They can, but The Daily Show didn’t hire those women. They hired Munn. Her response to feminist critics is that they should, “Walk it off, bitch.” That’s an exact quote. I remember thinking that it was the kind of statement that Jon Stewart might make fun of if he hadn’t just hired the woman who made it. Then I read the Jezebel article and the response letter, and I realized that Munn is the rule rather than exception at The Daily Show. Munn’s quote says a lot about the kind of women the Daily Show likes to hire – Women who are anti-feminist and will side with men against other women.  I enjoy the Daily Show, but Jezebel wins this battle, and women ALL WOMEN, especially The Daily Show Employees now lose. In fact, by writing the letter they have created the conditions for a MORE sexist workplace because they already gave the boys their legally admissible get-out-of-jail free card/letter.  Jon Stewart is even smarter, and more sexist, than I thought.  (Super90 the fact that you call women “chicks” tells us all we need to know about your gender awareness.)
“The Daily Show” is not known for showing its inner workings. In fact, host Jon Stewart and the staff of the Comedy Central show rarely participate in stories about the program or their process, saying they want the comedy to...