Sexual Harassment

Harvey Weinstein is an American film producer and former film executive that was recently accused of sexual harassment and assault by 63 actresses and film industry figures. Actresses like Angelina Jolie, Cara Delevingne, and many more have come out and talked about their terrible encounters with Weinstein. Angelina Jolie stated that she “had a bad experience with Harvey Weinstein in [her] youth” and since then decided not to work with him and [warn others when they did]. Cara Delevingne explains her encounter with him and states that he invited her up to his room, but she had denied the offer and asked if her car was outside. His assistance said no and that she should go up to his room. She states that “at that moment [she] felt powerless and scared”. When she was in his room, he began talking to her in a very inappropriate way and as she was heading out, he tried to kiss her but she stopped him and managed to get out of the room. After Weinstein, a list of about 30 high profile men was accused of sexual misconduct. These men have had to resign or have been fired. These claims range from inappropriate texts to rape.

After reading these articles, a question I kept seeing was: why didn’t these women come out earlier? And the sad reality is that they didn’t say anything before, not because of fame, but because 1) women are made to fail ashamed and humiliated for not fighting hard, 2) they are threatened into silence and most of them are punished if they speak out, and 3) most of the time authorities don’t take these kinds of situations seriously.

Men like Weinstein believe they can get away with anything because of the level of power they have. And it is not okay. We as a community, also need to change. We can’t keep shaming people that have experienced sexual harassment and blame them for it. It is not their fault that this happened to them; they didn’t ask for it. They are the victims and the only one that should be blamed for this are the perpetrators. And it is why a big percentage of people who have been harassed don’t come out right after it happened; because they do not want to be humiliated. And when they do accuse their perpetrators, we blame them. In this case, the first person who accused Weinstein received many comments from people saying “Why didn’t you say anything when it first happened? You could have prevented the rest of those incidents”.

Victims don’t control the perpetrators' behavior or actions. We need to stop blaming the victim and make them feel safe so that they can come out without feeling ashamed.