Some of the women from Rocksteady Studios who together signed a letter accusing management of allowing sexual harassment have come to the studio’s defense, but one has gone public with additional allegations.
Former Rocksteady scriptwriter Kim MacAskill also responded to The Guardian’s article in a 13-minute YouTube video in which she says she wrote the original November 2018 letter.
“When I left, I thought things were getting better,” MacAskill said. “Now I’m learning they have not. And I’m so angry.”
MacAskill said she originally wrote the letter because she had personally experienced sexism in the studio, and heard from another woman who was sexually assaulted by another employee but was forced to continue working with him, because HR conducted an investigation.
“Through my complaints and hers, it was one thing we noticed that no one asked if we were OK. No one asked how we were. It was like HR quarantine. No one spoke to you when you complained.”
She said she started talking to the other women in the studio at the time about her experiences and drafted a letter in hopes of signing them up and taking them to management. She wrote multiple versions of the letter, and took feedback from the women she spoke to, to make it accurately reflect her experiences.
“During that time, HR tried to stop me at least twice,” MacAskill said. “And I had taken members of senior management to not only tell me to stop what I was doing, but to tell me that continuing this potential would jeopardize my position in the company. And not just that, but it would even jeopardize my position here by other companies, because I might be seen as having a problem. “
MacAskill believes the company lost them because of the letter. She stopped by Rocksteady in 2019.
“As a result, I lost my job. I lost my job. They will never admit it. But [they] told me quite clearly that they could not have me anymore and replaced me in the month of a writer. Everyone knew what had happened, and I think it prevented women from coming forward. “
MacAskill supported the account of the original Guardian report that Rocksteady’s only response to the letter was to have a seminar on sexism, and that it never explained the reason for it as acknowledging the appealing letter to the studio in general.
“It only takes a few phone calls to make me realize that this behavior is still happening. It’s like all our efforts meant for nothing. That makes me feel … it’s more than anger, it’s good humiliation.”
MacAskill concluded by asking Rocksteady to leave her name out of the credits of the upcoming Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League game she was working on.
“See that things have not improved, Rocksteady, I formally ask you to remove my name from your game. I do not want to be associated with your game. I do not want to be associated with your company. My whole memory to be in your company be like one of your only senior women trying to protect the women in your business while allowing you to continue to abuse, abuse and hurt them, and all the time – all the time – to protect the people who did it, the people who “I know I’m still in that business.”
A representative with Rocksteady parent Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment did not immediately return a request for comment.
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