ALL IN THE FAMILY dealt with sexual harassment and/or assault on 2 significant occasions, though there may have been more that weren't as prominent as the ones I'm about to discuss.
In Gloria The Victim, Gloria comes into the house a bit dishevled. Mike is confused as to why she doesn't show affection, and she then privately tells Edith she'd been attacked walking home from Kressler's, where she works. When she later tells the men in the house, Archie is more than ready to call the cops, despite Edith's dissuasion.
The police detective visiting the Bunker household treats Gloria to a hypothetical example of how victims are abused on the witness stand - much the way high schools & colleges do with victims of such incidents (and I know this from my sexual assault experiences on campus). Ediths encourages Gloria to put the rapist away, with a story of how she'd been a victim of attempted date-rape as a teen in the 1940s, but had not reported it. Archie & Mike, however, dissuade Gloria from pursuing justice.
Four years later, in Edith's 50th Birthday, Edith is home alone, face to face with a sadistic, smarmy rapist named Lambert, who manages to thwart almost all of Edith's escape attempts - except one. A burning cake in the oven, which she wisely throws into his face, then fleeing the house!
Gloria's persuading Edith to put the sicko creep away proves fruitless, untl she yells, "you are selfish! You're not my mother anymore!" This leads Edith to slap Gloria across the face...then realizing she must indentify her attacker for "every woman who's a possible victim of a nut like that..." and, for herself. Like Gloria once said, "the criminal's supposed to be in jail, not the victim."
True. The criminal is the one who's supposed to be in jail. Many women are scared to leave their houses after such incidents, or to prevent them. I've seen shows where women don't report the attack immediately, and their fight for justice drags on until the end of the episode.
On MELROSE PLACE, Jane handled her rape at the hands of her abusive partner Richard in the stupidest way possible. She showers, removing all physical evidence, doesn't report the assault, and instead of seeking justice secretly plots to kill him with help from her sister Sydney.
On BEVERLY HILLS, 90210, Kelly was much smarter, immediately going to the hospital after she was violently atacked in an alley. In the next episode, she kills her attacker in self defense. Bad-ass way to get justice!
A quarter century ago, I was violently thrown against my locker by a 14-year-old, who was so determined to, in his words, f*** me. As he undud his belt, I kneed him in his stomach - right near his safe deposit box - and fled the school. He screamed at me "get back here you little b****!" Unfortunately, when I reported the incident to school staff, my attacker and his sister changed the story to make me look bad. The case was dropped, and the whole high school turned against me. His sister then forced me to recant the story to the principal, and blackmailed me to stay "friends" with her, depsite my desire to break free from her control.
Four years after that incident, I narrowly ecaped an attacker near the ladies' room in college. The perv followed me up to the second floor rest room and waited for me to come out. When I peeked around the corridor, I thought he was gone, and tried to come out. Alas, he was on the other side of the door frame and lunged at me. I screamed loud enough to scare him off and ran like the wind downstairs. I didn't tell school staff, fearing they would "turn it around and male it look like I asked for it", like high school did.
Ladies, we are all empowered to fight for our rights. Stand up for yourself, don't let anyone intimidate you.