Harvey Weinstein is not the only powerful man in the world to allegedly hit on, sexually harass, bully and play God with young, female employees or potential employees.
Ask the woman next to you, there are Harvey Weinsteins in every industry.
Some of these power-harassers are even more garish than Harvey, some are charming, others are barbaric, there are the ones who try to “help” your career, the ones who laugh and tell the office you “can’t take a joke”. The ones who make you cry.
Jia Tolentino in The New Yorker wrote: “There is no good exit from a hotel room with Harvey Weinstein.”
It’s true. There is no good exit from a sexual harassment encounter. Even when you do get out of the situation, you probably don’t feel like you’ve come out as any kind of victor. But we need remember: we can exit. We need to remember: our stories are powerful. And we need to remember: we are never to blame.
As Tolentino writes:
If you’re sweet and friendly, you’ll think that it’s your fault for accommodating the situation. If you’re tough, well, you might as well decide that it’s no big deal. If you’re a gentle person, then he knew you were weak. If you’re talented, he thought of you as an equal. If you’re ambitious, you wanted it. If you’re savvy, you knew it was coming. If you’re affectionate, you seemed like you were asking for it all along. If you make dirty jokes or have a good time at parties, then why get moralistic? If you’re smart, there’s got to be some way to rationalize this.
Here’s what six Australian women did in the face of sexual harassment.
I was a junior at one of Australia’s most well known current affairs programs. ‘He’s going to love you,’ a female colleague told me when I said I’d scored the job. On my third day I knew who she meant. I had to wear big headphones to transcribe big interviews, so the first time I felt his hands on my shoulders, I jumped like the chair had electrocuted me. He laughed and pressed his fingers into the squishy part of my back for a moment, moving underneath both my bra straps. I started to hear stories about how many women he’d slept with in the office. In the kitchen, he touched my cheek and told me I should teach him how to ‘take a selfie’ one day. That afternoon in my big headphones, when I felt his hands on my shoulders, a shocked noise came out of my mouth as I clumsily pushed away his hands away from my neck. I don’t know how loud I was or how I’d got to facing him in my chair. He gestured at me like I was a bucking horse and stepped backward. ‘Whoa whoa whoa, I’m not sure why you’re making such a scene right now,’ he said, meeting everyone’s gaze except mine. He didn’t do it again. Every time I saw him, he pretended I wasn’t there. I wished I hadn’t ‘made a scene’. But he never did it again. – Elizabeth