The allegations that have been made against Ben Affleck, and much more seriously Harvey Weinstein, have led to one troubling question being asked by many; why do these women not walk away and why don’t they speak at the time?
Weinstein, the 65-year-old movie mogul, is facing a number of sexual
assault allegations which have emerged over three decades, with actresses Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan among the accusers. Affleck meanwhile, has been forced to apologise for groping actress Hilarie Burton in 2003 less than 24 hours after he claimed he was left ‘saddened’ by Weinstein’s action.
So powerful has Weinstein been throughout his career that it would be difficult to find one actress who has not met with Weinstein – as of 2015 Weinstein was the second most thanked man in Oscar history, just after Steven Spielberg and far ahead of God.
And those women who did speak up? They were either dismissed or had money thrown at them; Weinstein in the past 20 years has allegedly reached private settlements with eight of the women who made claims.In this exact situation we are absolutely talking about a classic power and control situation,’ said Rachel Krys, co-founder of the End Violence Against Women coalition which works specialist women’s support services, researchers, activists, survivors and NGOs working to end violence against women and girls in all its forms.
‘He is incredibly powerful in those women’s lives – it’s not just him, it’s his reputation, he is protected by a lot of people and one women coming out and rejecting him or going public would have had to carry a massive burden, and it would have massive impact on her career.’
Much of this is to do with the power inequality within job roles in Hollywood as well.
In 2016, women behind the scene in Hollywood comprised 4% of directors on the top 100 box office film, and within those 100 films women represented only 29% of all sole protagonists.
Women accounted for 14% of all directors, writers, executive producers, producers, editors, and cinematographers working that same year.
One can only imagine that if there were a more equal split between men and women working and producing movies, other women may feel more confident in reporting sexual assault.
Wendy Lyons from Human Assets, a group of business psychologists who can help companies to handpick the best talent for their business, adds that it is not just ‘up to the victims to challenge the behaviour’.
‘In many organisations, the most powerful people are still men, the culture is a patriarchal one and so women aren’t able to get the weight of support they need to stand up to this kind of abuse,’ says Lyons.
‘In the case of Harvey Weinstein, an extremely powerful man in Hollywood sexually harassing aspiring, often young, actresses seeking work in a highly competitive industry… women are often afraid that if they offend the perpetrator either by assertively rejecting his advances or by speaking out that there will be repercussions for their job/career,’ she says.
‘Women are also often afraid that they won’t be believed or even that they will be blamed in some way, for example “why did you go to his hotel room alone?”. Our organisations, and society more generally, have a big role to play in this, it is not just up to the victims to challenge the behaviour.
It is known that predators such as Weinstein are fully aware of the power they have over women – it’s a power women have been fighting against since time began – but as Krys suggests, women in Hollywood, and many other insular industries, find themselves in a catch 22 situation.
‘You can reject one powerful man but you have to get a job somewhere… it took an avalanche of women started to talking about it before any individual had the confidence to call it out,’ she added.
‘It speaks to the whole of society and the way we view all of sexual harassment and violence, and women’s power in the workplace – we do need to get to a place when men and other bystanders could get to a point where they speak out, but there is real fear that you will be dismissed.
‘Women are regularly not believed when they talk about sexual harassment but once more women begin to come together – they can corroborate each other’s story as they’re all telling the same story and that gives them confidence.’
More women are speaking up about Weinstein as they see other women being taken seriously,’ adds Lyons.
‘The more powerful voices enable the less powerful to speak out with less fear of repercussions. However, the emphasis should be less on the victims to speak out and more on changing the culture of organisations and institutions to prevent and condemn this kind of behaviour.’
After all, as Krys concludes: ‘We too often blame ourselves and question ourselves- could we have done something different, and it’s important that women hear the message it is not your fault.’
Rose McGowan is the highest-profile of Weinstein’s accusers, with it emerging she reportedly sued the movie producer for making advances on her during the production of the Weinstein-produced 1996 teen slasher film Scream.
McGowan claims she was abused by Weinstein inside a hotel room at the Sundance Film Festival in 1997. Rose has previously claimed she was raped by a studio head and on Sunday, she tweeted about being abused by a ‘monster’.
Gwyneth Paltrow claimed she suffered sexual abuse by Harvey Weinstein in the 1990s.
She detailed how, after being cast in Weinstein’s Jane Austen adaptation of Emma, he touched her and invited her into his hotel room for a massage.
The mum-of-two, who also starred in Weinstein’s Oscar-winning movie Shakespeare In Love, which was a Miramax Films production, claimed she had been asked to attend a meeting in his hotel room when he made the advance. ‘I was a kid, I was signed up, I was petrified,’ Paltrow told the New York Times.
Gwyneth, aged 22 at the time, bravely rejected his offer and then told her then-boyfriend Pitt, then aged 32, what had happened. At a party in 1995 Pitt then approached Weinstein and, without worrying about his own career in Hollywood, told him in no uncertain terms to never touch Paltrow again.
Representatives for Pitt confirmed the story.
Angelina Jolie
In an email to the New York Times, which broke the story of decades of harassment by Weinstein on Hollywood women, Angelina also documented her own experience.She said: ‘I had a bad experience with Harvey Weinstein in my youth. And as a result, chose never to work with him again and warn others when they did. This behavior towards women in any field, any country is unacceptable.’
(Source:http://metro.co.uk/entertainment/)
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