“The Left are scrambling to protect Harvey Weinstein!”
<The Left condemn Harvey Weinstein>
“The comedy shows aren’t making jokes about him!”
<The comedy shows make jokes about him>
“Obama and the Clintons aren’t condemning him because he’s a big Democratic contributor!”
<Obama and the Clintons issue condemnations>
“Goddammit! Why won’t you liberals be as unprincipled and hypocritical as we keep saying you are?”
As for why no one is naming names on the other offenders: the answer is that the people involved are incredibly powerful and well-connected, and you need someone who is both well-placed to make the accusation credibly and willing to take the hit both to their career and their reputation (given that pretty much all women making sexual harassment accusations are immediately accused of being sluts). Gretchen Carlson broke the dam at FoxNews, Ashley Judd broke the dam with Weinstein, and I’m guessing that if the accusers of Weinstein are believed a few more Hollywood dams will break.
Conversely I’m guessing that the other powerful, influential people in Hollywood likely to be in the firing line are currently engaged in various CYA exercises including rewriting history, making veiled threats against potential accusers and having long expensive conversations with their lawyers. They won’t all go down easy.
I still really hope that more women (and men, too – Terry Crews told a pretty disgusting story about getting groped by a male executive) come forward and call these assholes out en masse. Let’s pull the bandaid off the entire frickin’ industry, and any other industries with similar systemic/cultural problems.
There have been times I would rather face down a machine gun than talk about some incidents. I stand by the statement that it is terrifying, especially when the offender has power and authority.
I feel I am uniquely qualified to make this particular statement and comparison.
Not much to add except I just heard that recording of Sweinestein and the latina actress he was trying to harangue into his hotel room.
What a loathsome shit stain. May he get every horrible punishment he’s got coming to him: humiliation, divorce, law suits, crippling financial penalties, prison time, sexual predator record… all of it.
That’s my point, whether or not you were the direct victim, you risk your career, AND you’re less credible because you only “heard” it happened in most cases.
All the cases I’ve read, there were no witnesses, just Weinstein and his victim. So it’s understandable that the victims would be scared, but men who weren’t there are supposed to speak up? That’s insane.
The only way this works is if victims speak up, and people rally around them. If they won’t name the perps, then there’s nothing anyone can do.
Yeah, but in Crews’ case and in alll the other non-Weinstein cases, the people are still doing what they do and it pretty much zero risk of getting busted.
In the first four days or so, I was willing to agree that these stories were courageous. Now I’m losing patience. Nothing changes until the scumbags are outed. What we’re seeing now is the culture of sexual abuse by the powerful entrenched more than ever. If even the Weinstein story won’t get people to talk, then the remaining abusers have to know they are safer than ever.
I understand the frustration, but people need to step up and “name names” when they feel safe and strong enough to do so - the hope is always as people see others step forward, they will also feel brave enough to do so.
Sadly, victim-blaming is still alive and well, and the personal cost can seem too high for some.
If African-Americans had never hit the street and risked the dogs and firehoses and even deadly retaliation later as individuals, where would we be today? At some point, women have to stand up for their rights.
Hollywood male stars seizing the opportunity to show their outrage on social media should take care it doesn’t bite them in their asses. Just hours after Ben Affleck said he was “saddened and angered” by Weinstein’s sexual harassment of women Hilarie Burton, star of One Tree Hill, claimed Affleck groped her when she was a host of MTV’s TRL.
If the whole thing weren’t so sad it would be hilarious.
And they are…it doesn’t happen all at once, and it’s not a fast process. Look at what is going on, lawsuits and media exposes on people that were once considered untouchable - it is happening, all around us.
Hell, there are three class-action suits against the Canadian Armed Forces right now - that would have been unheard of only ten years ago. It’s happening.
We’d probably have a President still haranguing black people for even the most benign forms of protest, oh wait…
Your support for sexual harassment victims by telling them to ignore any incipient PTSD and go take on their incredibly powerful harassers at the potential risk of losing their livelihood and being blackballed by the entire film and television industry is an inspiration to us all.
But now I’m wondering how many Affleck-level offenders (who don’t have the same level of clout as a Weinstein) are going to be outed in the coming weeks. Fun times in Hollywood.
I fully understand your argument, but let’s be clear here: the victims do not face lynching, and even if their careers ended many of them would be just fine. There was no real risk for Paltrow or Jolie to out Weinstein years ago. And because they didn’t, he created a lot more victims. And because of their continued silence on other abusers, more victims are created every day in that industry.
I do understand why they didn’t and why they still won’t. I can’t claim that my courage is greater than theirs. But I can point out that things never change until people put themselves out on that limb. And that change is not possible if victims stay silent. Bystanders cannot bring about this change themselves. You know what happens to me if I see sexual harassment by a supervisor and I report it, but the victim won’t corroborate? If it doesn’t start with the victims themselves, then we might as well just give up and accept that this is how things are and how they always will be.
Sometimes things are hard. This is hard. It may not be fair that the victims are the ones that have to step up, but it’s the only way. They either do it and empower themselves, or they don’t and get victimized over and over.
And I’d note that while Affleck isn’t as powerful as Weinstein, he’s grown to be a pretty big deal. Not just as an actor, but a top level director and producer now as well. He matters, and taking him on does carry risks. Although I suspect Affleck isnt the monster Weinstein is and won’t retaliate against his accusers. He probably knows he did wrong and wishes it would just go away. But then again, I don’t know him, so we’ll find out.
I hope survivors come forward and tell their stories as well, but don’t think that you can know what kind of courage it requires. You’re falling into the trap of assuming you can reason out how these sorts of feelings can or should work. You can’t – no one who hasn’t experienced it can (I can’t either). By all means try to help make an environment in which people feel more comfortable telling the truth, but don’t try to make it a moral imperative that victims of abuse must take certain actions. The problems of abuse are due to abusers, not due to any action or inaction by abused people. I hope people come forward, but the only moral imperative in this situation is for abusers to stop abusing people, and those who cover for the abusers to stop doing that as well.
