Disclaimer: This article discusses sexual harassment and assault.
How do we even begin to talk about Harvey Weinstein and the incredibly prevalent sexual assault and harassment problem in Hollywood? Over the past few weeks, I’ve seen so many writers grapple with this conversation and it’s pretty impossible to figure out where to even start with all of this.
Some backstory for those not familiar: Harvey Weinstein is one of the most successful and prolific movie producers in Hollywood. He and his brother Bob co-chaired The Weinstein Company up through this year. They also co-founded Miramax, which has produced a veritable bevy of films, most notably Pulp Fiction. He was probably one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, if not the most powerful.
For two decades now, murmurs of Weinstein’s gross, sexually-charged business practices have lived in the undercurrent of Hollywood. It was a running joke from about 1998, when Gwyneth Paltrow said Weinstein “will coerce you to do a thing or two” on Late Night with David Letterman, up through the 2013 Academy Awards, when Seth MacFarlane joked that “Congratulations, you five ladies no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein” when announcing the nominees for Best Supporting Actress.
And then, on October 5th, the New York Times published an expose uncovering more than a dozen sexual assault accusations levied against Weinstein over the past thirty years. As of writing this article, the number of women accusing Weinstein has grown to over sixty. They include past assistants of Weinstein as well as prominent Hollywood actresses, such as Cara Delevingne, Lena Headey, Lupita Nyong’o and Angelina Jolie. He’s been accused of everything from lewd humor to soliciting massages to masturbating in front of women to straight up rape.
In the wake of this, more and more journalists have been compiling lists of men in Hollywood who either make light of rape through jokes, have been accused of domestic violence, or who have somehow managed to escape career-ending rape allegations. I wrote about Casey Affleck’s sexual assault allegations this year, but it goes so much deeper than just a handful of men. I read a list of men this morning who have had these sort of allegations levied against them and I just cried because these men are still working. These men are still winning awards. These men are getting paid more than women who have been abused by them are getting paid.
So what can I even talk about? How it’s really screwed up that Weinstein got expelled from the Academy but Woody Allen and Roman Polanski are still in it? How I read about all of these amazing actors being accused of domestic violence and couldn’t believe how swept under the rug it was? How if sixty women have spoken up about Weinstein, then there are probably so many more? How so many people in Hollywood knew about it and either kept quiet (Quentin Tarantino) or made jokes about it on television (Seth MacFarlane; the writers of 30 Rock) instead of trying to stop it? How this problem also extends to other art forms, as the current Phantom in Phantom of the Opera on Broadway is a convicted pedophile? How I read Cara Delevingne’s story about how her bisexuality was treated by Weinstein and feel the need to puke a little bit? Where the hell am I supposed to start?
I’m tired of men like Harvey Weinstein.
Last year at school, a group of men catcalled me from a car as I walked down Middle Path and then pulled over and tried to pull me into the car. I was walking home alone after my friends left before me from the dance concert. I thought it would be fine because I just needed to get to Lewis Residence Hall from the theater, which isn’t that far and there were lots of people milling around because it was a Friday night. But no. Instead, about six men thought they could take advantage of a girl walking alone.
This was the second time in the past four years where a man has tried to force me into his car. He was in a group when it happened the first time too.
If I’ve learned anything from those experiences, from Harvey Weinstein and from the other crappy Hollywood men, it is that power forces women into subordinate positions where they have to accept the abuse they receive. The majority of women I know at Kenyon who have been assaulted are too scared to go to the Title IX office. The majority of the women who Weinstein harassed felt that they needed to accept their assault in order to have a job in Hollywood. This fear comes from a power structure that denies women the autonomy to stand up and say, “hey, this isn’t okay,” without fear of repercussion.
I’m tired of men thinking it is okay to abuse women and scare women because they have power.
And this isn’t just a problem with men-on-women crime. There are women who abuse other women. There are men who abuse other men. There are women who abuse men. There are men and women who abuse non-binary individuals.
Yet, in the context of Hollywood sexual assault and the power structures that allow for a man to get away with sexually bullying women for thirty years or allow someone who abuses women to graduate with a Bachelor’s degree, this male power over female/non-binary individuals that causes subordination and fear is what we most commonly see. And the expectation shouldn’t be to force victims to share their stories. Speaking out against someone more powerful than you is terrifying and victims, regardless of gender identity, should not be the ones to blame for men like Harvey Weinstein. Instead, we need to heavily evaluate the systems of willful ignorance that allow men to reap the benefits of their undeserving power while devaluing the safety of women and other victims.
I’m tired of men like Harvey Weinstein, but I’m more tired of why men like Harvey Weinstein are allowed to have the power they do.
Image Credit: Feature, 1, 2, 3, 4
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