NOW WHAT?
exploited women— or often girls— the stereotype of the Vengeful
Lying Slut supplied the words to justify their behavior: She wanted
it/asked for it/had it coming.
The stereotype alas persists. It underlies men’s fears that they,
too, will be brought down by false allegations. Some men have
become so frightened that they now refuse to meet (or to eat with)
a female colleague alone. When Roy Moore was accused of sexual
assault, his campaign said he was the victim of a “witch hunt.” That
response is a telling and time- honored way of discrediting victims.
The #MeToo and Time’s Up movements show that women can no
longer be silenced by threats of slut shaming. When a manager at
Google told one of the female engineers who worked there, “It’s tak-
ing all my self- control not to grab your ass right now,” she tweeted
it out to the world. In the fi rst 24 hours after actress Alyssa Milano
suggested that victims of harassment reply “me too” to a tweet in
October, 12 million women made #MeToo posts on Facebook. Instead
of distancing themselves from those challenging sexual harassment,
as might have happened in the past, actors and actresses wore black
to the 2018 Golden Globes to signal their solidarity.
Translating outrage into action, however, requires moving
beyond hashtags toward new norms of workplace conduct. It’s a
precarious moment, and a lot could go wrong. Just think what might
have happened if the Washington Post, with admirable rigor, had not
uncovered the truth when a woman approached it with a dramatic
but false accusation against Roy Moore. Her purpose? To snooker the
Post into publishing a bogus story and to thereby cast doubt on all
mainstream media reporting the claims against Moore. But so far so
good, with early signs that workplaces are indeed changing.
Firing Is the New Settlement
In the past companies often quietly paid to settle sexual harassment
complaints against high- powered miscreants and tried to limit the
damage through nondisclosure agreements. Incidents at Fox gave
rise to at least seven settlements (some against Fox, some against
individuals at Fox). Weinstein reportedly paid out eight. Despite