When my retaliation and sexual harassment complaint against Roger Ailes, the former Fox News chairman and C.E.O., went public in 2016, there were no #MeToo or Times Up movements to help rally support for my cause. In the years that followed, many more women have found the courage to come forward, calling out Bill O’Reilly, Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men accused of abusing their power. When I sued, I could have never known that my story and the stories of other women at Fox would turn into both a television mini-series and a film, and, more important, that I would be prohibited from speaking about these projects.

Three years ago, receiving a public apology from 21st Century Fox and retaining the right to speak about harassment generally felt like big wins. And they were. But had I known my complaint would help ignite such a profound cultural shift and that I would be depicted onscreen, I would have also fought against signing the nondisclosure agreement, or NDA, that prevented me from discussing my experiences while working at Fox News. At the time, I just wanted to bring closure to an ugly chapter in my life; I thought it would, at the most, lead to a week of press attention — not spawn a mini-series and a movie and become part of a global rallying cry.

“Winning” my complaint with a settlement and a nondisclosure agreement meant I was, essentially, forced into silence. NDAs were originally designed to safeguard the sharing of proprietary corporate information (think the formula for Coca-Cola), not to protect predatory behavior. Although NDAs usually prohibit employers from disparaging victims, whisper campaigns often follow women for years. As I documented in my book “Be Fierce,” the vast majority of survivors never work in their chosen professions again. American industry has lost many talented women to harassment, while allowing predators to continue climbing the professional ladder (where they have the potential to victimize even more women).