Why did no one speak out about Harvey Weinstein?

[niyad]

Why did no one speak out about Harvey Weinstein?

As the allegations swirl around the disgraced film mogul, we must ask whose fault it is that his behaviour continued unchallenged for so long – and how we stop the harassers we encounter in our own lives

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Harvey Weinstein with his wife, Georgina Chapman, at the 2016 Oscars. Photograph: Buckner/Variety/REX/Shutterstock


This happens once in a while: a tide of disapproval should crash on the head of the man who has been serially sexually harassing women for his entire career. But it never does. Almost as the story breaks, his part in it becomes a trigger event at best – the Franz Ferdinand moment in the first world war – or a footnote at worst. Instead, the pressing question becomes: whose fault was it that a culture of silence built up around the person whose fault it actually was? It is almost as if the extravagance of the offence expiates the offender: Harvey Weinstein has so many allegations against him – of harassment and assault, of rape, forced oral sex, the systematic silencing of his victims. He has “unequivocally denied” any allegations of non-consensual sex. However, of the harassment, he has admitted enough that we know he is a bad man. We know about bad men the way we know about hurricanes. They simply exist, and when they land, they leave a lot of clearing up to do.

Is the fault institutional? The Weinstein Company fired Weinstein when everyone found out he was a sexual predator; it would have been better if they had fired him when it found out. According to the testimonies of 16 separate former and current executives, his behaviour was widely known, both at Miramax and the Weinstein Company. Are the real culprits the very powerful allies of the predator? It has been alleged that Matt Damon and Russell Crowe worked actively to suppress one story in 2004, much to the rage of Sharon Waxman, the journalist whose story went under the wheels of that celebrity juggernaut. (It would be saddening and surprising to discover that Damon is a jerk; less so Crowe.)

Is the problem more generally from male bystanders – even if we accept that not everybody knew what was going on, there are enough people directly implicated – the lawyers, the fixers, the friends – to infer that many more had a fair idea. Since men can raise their objections to sexual harassment without the risks that women face – of being branded hysterics or fantasists, or driven by envy – shouldn’t they use that freedom to better purpose? The worst that they would be called is humourless. Or should female bystanders, particularly the powerful ones, take the lead, in defence of the sisterhood? Is it good enough to say, as Meryl Streep has: “I did not know about his financial settlements with actresses and colleagues; I did not know about his having meetings in his hotel room, his bathroom, or other inappropriate, coercive acts.” Shouldn’t everybody make it their business to know? It seems inconceivable that a man with such a range of behaviour should have passed as a regular Joe to anyone. Or does all the responsibility lie with the women Weinstein harassed, who should have worked to make their experience public for the sake of the other women who would inevitably follow? Or – one crowning victim-blaming intervention from the surprisingly unglued Donna Karan – were those women at fault because they were asking for it in the first place? (“Here, wear this thing for an awards ceremony. Oh, you got sexually harassed? You shouldn’t have worn that thing, maybe?” is a summary of Karan’s position, but it’s worth watching in full, if you want to really get angry.) She has subsequently apologised.


There’s a relatively simple two-grid matrix we could use when it comes to ascertaining the ethics of all this: how much power do you have yourself, and how easily can you be discredited by exactly the same cultural contempt for women that spurred the harassment in the first place? As the writer, feminist and human rights activist Joan Smith reminds us: “The men who do this, do it because they have the power and wealth to get away with it. They deliberately pick on women who are less powerful than themselves.” If you had a lot of professional or cultural capital yourself, it is less likely that you would be sexually harassed; when you chastise victims for not speaking out sooner, you’re asking women to suffer the double punishment of being harassed in the first place, and then having to kill the green shoots of a nascent career for some higher altruistic purpose. Practically if not explicitly, it’s not much different from saying it’s their fault.

. . . . .

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/oct/10/why-did-no-one-speak-out-about-harvey-weinstein

[delisen]

1. Cultural Context.We. are embedded in a culture

and receive unspoken or whispered messages throughout our lives as to what can and cannot be expressed in our shared narrative about who we are.

It is like a spell upon us and within which we live.

If you break the spell bad things might happen.

It is related to but not quite the same as the story, The Emperor Has No Clothes. One day a little boy tells the truth about the emperor walking around naked.

In that case the spell was broken and suddenly everyone agreed-damn the emperor is naked-even though they refused to accept that truth earlier. In fact, they had previousreinforced the group delusion by describing the emperor's clothes to each other.

But that story could have ended differently-the little truth-teller might have been bullied, beaten up, rejected by family, abandoned, ostracized, maimed, murdered.

Timing and readiness seem to be important in truth-telling.

[zipplewrath]

2. People don't know, it's not that complicated.

A friend of mine was sexually abused as a teenager by a teacher. But her big points was that she found out in later years that many, many people were suspicious that something was going on but said nothing. They felt they didn't know enough to make an accusation. What she explains is that for predators, you don't have to accuse to have an effect. Any one of the adults could have merely said something like "Wow, you're really popular with your students", or "They really seem to like you", and that alone would have had an effect on them. More importantly, they could have said to each other, "Wow, he really is popular with his students" and often that would have been enough to start a conversation about "yeah, maybe too popular" or some other expression of concern without actually making a formal accusation.

With the Weinstein situation, if people had mere said anything about their observations, even something that most of us might consider non-threatening, it could have had an impact. More importantly, it could have helped empower these women to say something. Something as simple as saying, "Oh, Harvey wants to meet with you! That could be important to your career. Definitely take the meeting. Oh, by the way, he can be a bit 'too friendly'. Keep your physical distance and if it gets out of hand, tell me". That alone could have empowered the women to actually "tell someone" such that it would have become far more known than it (apparently) was. There were way too many people that thought what they observed was the "limit" of what he was doing. It wasn't and that is the problem with this kind of harassment/abuse. A bit like child abuse, what people see in public is usually "the tip of the iceberg". If you see something that even makes you slightly uncomfortable, it is not uncommon that something worse is happening in private.

Someone saying "Harvey, that might make folks uncomfortable" can help alot. Furthermore, saying if front of a person, "Wow Harvey, I'd bet you made her feel uncomfortable" can help alot. Yes, the victim might not immediately acknowledge that it did, especially in front of a powerful person. But it will establish that it is the powerful person that is the problem, not the victim. And furthermore, at some point in the future, it might start to collect in the memories of people around the abuser that can act that this behavior is repeated and problematic.

Silence is the problem. Saying almost anything other than "keep quite" is the solution.

[delisen]

3. So little steps, small but honest statements

and observations can help.

Good to think about.