EMILY NESTOR
Says Weinstein
offered to help
her career while
bragging about
his sexual
encounters, and
asked her to be
his “girlfriend” in
2014
LAUREN SIVAN
Says Weinstein
masturbated in
front of her in
2007LIZA
CAMPBELL
Says Weinstein
asked her to
take a bath with
him in 1995 ROMOLA GARAI
Says Weinstein
made her audition
for him in his
empty hotel suite
while he wore only
a bathrobeASIA ARGENTO
Says Weinstein
performed
oral sex on her
without her
consent in 1997‘I was a kid,
I was signed
up, I was
petrified.’
GWYNETH PALTROW,
to the New YorkTimes40%
Percentage of
women who have
experienced
unwanted sexual
behavior or
advances at workAFTER DECADES OF OPERATING WITH IMPUNITY
as one of the most powerful men in entertainment,
Harvey Weinstein has been brought down by
a flood of chilling sexual harassment and assault
claims, more of which may yet come to light.
Power seems to have been his noxious aphrodisiac.
Power was why some women acceded and others
clammed up, why his employees helped facilitate
his assaults and why so many in Hollywood
looked the other way for decades. Power was the
means, the motive and the cover-up. And power
is exactly what he has lost, in a downfall that
spans two coasts, several industries and dozens
of klieg-lit names.
Weinstein spent decades building his fiefdom
on the grounds of a pervasive “see something, say
nothing” culture of capitulation. But at the same
time, and apparently beyond his view, women were
inching their way toward greater social, political
and professional power. How fitting that it is their
voices breaking the silence and shattering Holly-
wood’s glass houses. In the rubble of Weinstein’s
empire, we find artifacts divulging so much about
our values, our culture and ourselves. The story
they tell is one of stunning hypocrisy and of the
slow grind of earth shifting beneath us.WEINSTEIN WAS RIGHTwhen he said, in a
statement to the New YorkTimes, that when he
was growing up in the 1960s and ’70s “all the rules
about behavior and workplaces were different.”What Weinstein’s
downfall means
for other
predators
By Jill FilipovicIt may not have been O.K. to ask your female
subordinate to watch you shower, or offer her
a naked massage, but tolerating inappropriate
sexual behavior from men was a cost many women
entering the workforce assumed they had to bear.
That began to change with Anita Hill’s testimony
in 1991 during the Senate confirmation hearings
for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Under oath and the glare of reproachful white
men, she detailed Thomas’ sexual advances and
pornographic commentary. Thomas was confirmed
anyway, butsexual harassment entered the
mainstream lexicon.
Twenty-five years later, the concept is a staple
of employee manuals, mandatory trainings and
HR departments. Still, power differentials matter.
Overt harassment may be increasingly kept in
check, but sexual coercion and abuse have not
been eradicated. They are simply more likely to
be hidden from plain view—in an office with the
door closed, in the corner of a company party,
at what was supposed to be a working dinner,
in a room at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel.
It’s no coincidence that harassment and even
assault were pushed undercover at the same time
more and more women entered previously male-
dominated fields, rose to prominence and gained
power in their own right. With more women in
the room, and a few at the top, male workplace
norms began to crack.
But only slightly. Across industries, there are
still men so powerful, they seem untouchable.
Feminist gains have only amplified this discon-
nect: women are told that the playing field is fair,
so when men behave badly and everyone seems to
know about it, it’s not just hard to rock the boat—
it’s hard to know there’s a boat that needs rocking.
Sexual-assault accusations had been swirling
around Bill Cosby for years. But none seemed to
stick, until they did—and more and more upon
those. Cosby has so far escaped legal consequences,LUCIA EVANS
Says Weinstein
forced her to
perform oral sex
on him in 2004MIRA SORVINO
Says Weinstein
tried to give her
a massage and
then attempted
to “get more
physical” in
1995SOURCES: THE NEW YORK TIMES, HUFFPOST, THE NEW YORKER, THE TIMES OF LONDON AND THE GUARDIANBATTILANA GUTIERREZ: SHUTTERSTOCK; JUDD, MCGOWAN, SIVAN: GETTY IMAGES (3);CAMPBELL: SHUTTERSTOCK; GARAI, ARGENTO, SORVINO: GETTY IMAGES (3)