David Schwimmer has spoken out about raising a daughter in the wake of #MeToo and social media.
The Friends actor told the Today Show that he is educating his six-year-old daughter, Cleo, to stand up for herself as part of his fight against the sexual harassment of women.
"With my daughter, it’s more about just knowing it’s your body and your space. It’s more about personal space and building confidence in her to speak out and speak up if anything she encounters makes her feel uncomfortable, period. Her body, her hair, it’s hers. She owns it. It’s giving her the courage and confidence to speak up and speak out."
Sexual harassment, especially in the workplace, is a subject that is close to Schwimmer's heart. He said in a interview with NBC News Think: "I grew up with stories of sexual harassment from my mother: She was a young, attractive lawyer, working in the emerging field of family law in California, and there weren't a lot of them at the time.
"But I think there was something about the run-up to the election: I really noticed that women were being more openly demeaned and discredited and then, with a presidential candidate boasting of committing sexual assault on audio tape, I thought, This is real. This is unacceptable. I'm the father of a six-and-a-half year-old daughter; if I'm going to do something about this for the future generations, now is the time."
Schwimmer, who sits on the Board of Directors for The Rape Foundation, has produced a series PSAs (public service adverts) on American TV, called That's Harassment.
"We are trying to provide real solutions to both get people empowered to report and heal, and to get companies to reform their workplaces. I want to change things....And then, maybe, my daughter’s generation won’t have to endure what my mother’s did, and what mine did."
