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I am a freelancer in TV. I had a male boss who liked to use his power to humiliate women (and sometimes gay men or straight men he found threatening) in large meetings. He’d make jokes about their appearance or life / family / background and encourage other frightened workers and freelancers to laugh at them. He’d put people or their ideas down (and then use the ideas later, uncredited) He’d also find fault with their work in order to undermine their confidence and humiliate them. Once he and his male sycophants started discussing at what age a woman ceases to be sexually attractive to men. I had not been engaging in this conversation but he looked directly and pointedly at me and said a particular age. He knew I was that particular age at the time. On another occasion, he asked me to read out a piece of work he’d asked for and given a brief for. He let me read it and then proceeded to tell the whole room how this was exactly the type of work he didn’t want to see and was hyper-critical without actually saying what was wrong with it. Privately my colleagues told me they felt the work was good and met the brief and they couldn’t understand why he’d reacted like that to it but couldn’t say that or challenge him for fear of becoming a target themselves. When I tried to move to another area of the company he told me he would block me from moving there and that even if he couldn’t stop me he was going to be promoted and move over to that area and would then be my boss again. He was very threatening. As a freelancer I coulldnt go to Human Resources. And the union I belong to was sympathetic but has no strategy for cases of individual bullying other than to go in to workplaces to ‘educate’ staff/bosses generally about working without conflict. As a freelancer you’re particularly vulnerable. The only way out is to leave. I was not the only person he did this to and he was never challenged by his bosses. It was a creative environment and it suffered as people were too scared to create and risk being mocked or bullied. His cruelty became the creative vision and the end product suffered but mostly it broke people, their spirit and stifled talent.