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I just wanted to be vindicated, to hear someone say, 'You can't do that to a woman.'"

"I just wanted to be vindicated, to hear someone say, 'You can't do that to a woman.'"


In May 1937, a 20-year-old dancer named Patricia Douglas was brutally raped by an MGM studio executive at a "Wild West" party that was held for 300 of the company's employees. "He and another man held me down," Douglas recalled. 

"One pinched my nose so I'd have to open my mouth to breathe. Then they poured a whole glassful of scotch and champagne down my throat. Oh, I fought! But they thought it was funny. 

I remember a lot of laughter." But as Douglas sought justice for the attack, MGM stopped her at every turn. And when she finally sued the studio, their lawyers pointed at her at the trial and sneered, "Who would want her?" 

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