IN HER OWN WORDS
"I have been following the news and reading the accounts of women coming forward to talk about being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein and others. I had shelved my experience with Harvey far in the recesses of my mind, joining in the conspiracy of silence that has allowed this predator to prowl for so many years...
Harvey led me into a bedroom — his bedroom — and announced that he wanted to give me a massage. I thought he was joking at first. He was not. For the first time since I met him, I felt unsafe. I panicked a little and thought quickly to offer to give him one instead: It would allow me to be in control physically, to know exactly where his hands were at all times.
Part of our drama school curriculum at Yale included body work, using massage techniques on one another to understand the connection between body, mind and emotion, and so I felt I could rationalize giving him one and keep a semblance of professionalism in spite of the bizarre circumstance. He agreed to this and lay on the bed. I began to massage his back to buy myself time to figure out how to extricate myself from this undesirable situation. Before long he said he wanted to take off his pants. I told him not to do that and informed him that it would make me extremely uncomfortable. He got up anyway to do so and I headed for the door, saying that I was not at all comfortable with that. “If we’re not going to watch the film, I really should head back to school,” I said.
I opened the door and stood by the frame. He put his shirt on and again mentioned how stubborn I was. I agreed with an easy laugh, trying to get myself out of the situation safely. I was after all on his premises, and the members of his household, the potential witnesses, were all (strategically, it seems to me now) in a soundproof room....
Fortunately for me, I have not dealt with any such incidents in the business since. And I think it is because all the projects I have been a part of have had women in positions of power, along with men who are feminists in their own right who have not abused their power. What I am most interested in now is combating the shame we go through that keeps us isolated and allows for harm to continue to be done..."
Weinstein tried to corner Nyong'o no less than three times beginning when she was a student at Yale. She was smart and lucky to have escaped being sexually assaulted. I have been lucky as well. I have been downright blessed, in fact, because I was not smart.
I too have wound up tying up some business loose ends in hotel rooms, after meetings and such.
When I was young, I thought I was safe because I figured a co-worker wouldn't dare attack me for fear of my reporting him. In college, I remember watching a friend go off with a famous jazz artist and his entire band to their bus. I told her not to go, but eventually I figured they wouldn't dare hurt her for fear of being reported to police and being destroyed in the news.
We were incredibly naive.
But I don't believe in the naivete of at least half of these 40 and 50 year old actresses --who were never harassed or assaulted by him-- who are claiming they had no idea at all that Harvey Weinstein is who he is.
While it's true women will keep secrets about all manner of a sexual assault, many women will talk about low level sexual harassment. And Weinstein's pattern was too wide and too damn long for nobody to have known -- even without Seth McFarlane having hostile-joked about actresses having to pretend to be attracted to him.
Like Nyong'o said, it's time for the conspiracy of silence to end. But the other thing that needs to happen is that men need to be charged with a felony for certain levels of sexual harassment -- even if no touching occurs.
What Weinstein was doing, in my opinion, amounts to sexual blackmail with an eye toward rape. His actions seem to say if you don't gratify me sexually I'm going to damage your career if I can. That's a move toward coercive sex, non-consensual sex. While I know we couldn't get to wild with charging men in this situation, because it could be abused, we need to add a blackmail element to sexual harassment charges because blackmailing a person into future sex isn't the only goal.
As discussed previously, a man like Ben Affleck can grab a breast while being filmed because he knows the woman reporting it will likely damage her own career with male gatekeepers -- ten time more than it'll ever damage his. "Yeah I did it, but you better shut up about it" seems like a form of blackmail too.
Obviously, something is broken in our culture.
ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SEXUAL ASSAULT AND SEXUAL BLACKMAIL
I grew up thinking fending off men and not becoming too upset about it was part of being a woman, being a grown up, being a professional. But I thought we, as a country, were somewhat past this -- until Trump was elected. That was naive of me too. We're not going to get past men being able to sexually harass women until their are fairly severe consequences for them doing so. That will check the opportunists somewhat, make them re-evaluate their behavior and keep their hands to themselves The straight-up predators? Nothing it going to deter them. They'll be removed from our society when they are put in jail.
More feminist women need to become leaders and politicians in order to make some of these changes happen. We need more power, period. Our society needs to teach men to not be predators. But the male gatekeepers are not going to make changes to the law, increase the consequences for violations. Too many of them see low level sexual harassment as harmless fun. Sistahs, we have to stomp this piece of rape culture flat ourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment