We Need to Talk About Harvey Weinstein

Posted on 12 October, 2020

In February 2020 Harvey Weinstein, American film producer and co-founder of MIRAMAX, was convicted and sentenced to serve 23 years for sex crimes.

On Friday 2 October 2020, the LA County District Attorney’s Office announced six new charges making a total of 11 charges he is still to face. We need to talk about Harvey.

I have a shameful admission that when I first heard of Harvey Weinstein and his sex crimes, I thought “casting couch”. To be clear, this is not what I think now. I worked hard to unpick the seams of yesteryear’s bigotries as name after name of female actors, some I revered for their strong female character portrayals, spoke up to say they too had been sexually abused by Weinstein.

I had been so vocal and decisive as to my horrors at the findings of The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. I’ve always held myself to a high bar in regard to speaking up if I saw something wasn’t right. I would never walk past a female being harassed, or a male for that matter. I’d often made the statement ‘to ignore it is to condone it’. Yet somehow, I seemed to have accumulated a lot of ambiguity when it came to the topic of the #MeToo movement.

It consumed me, this inability to imagine how these women didn’t escape these situations with Weinstein. In the 80s I had to navigate the minefield of being a young woman in a world run by men. I had to work out the line between ‘come close’ and ‘that’s far enough’ and be strong enough to hold that battlement. And then came the epiphany; I was an unwitting accessory to the generations of men who wielded power to enact their misogynistic terror.

My favourite movie as I entered High School was Grease. Its strong message of good girl gets boy when she swaps bobby socks for tight leather pants, lots of makeup and a cigarette was not wasted on me. Puberty and lack of purpose had me place a high emphasis on my suitability as a girlfriend. It was girls like me that made some boys think they were Gods.

My first job was ‘Junior Secretary’, a title that conjures up images of skirt wearing subservient women and cigar smoking male bosses. I didn’t want the male attention that was on offer at work. I was ambitious and thought myself savvy.

For years I navigated being the token girl at client meetings and lunches, brought along to look pretty even though I knew more about our products than the over-bloated blokes quaffing Chardonnay.

An interview for a promotion with one boss was held in his hotel room, another showed up at my flat wanting to come in for a drink—all without incident. I could relate to how Weinstein’s victims got into that situation but couldn’t reconcile with why they didn’t get out of them.

I liked to think I had a good radar. I wasn’t going to succumb to the sleazes of society. No job or social standing would ever be important enough for me to sell my dignity. In these thoughts, I now understand I was victim-shaming.

Was I shielded by being physically tall and loud, or sending up a flare early enough? It certainly wasn’t the flirting, the innuendo, the jokes I played along with that saved me. Tools to get what I needed, and a validation of those men’s deplorable behaviour that might not fare so well for others.

I was selfish. I ignored their sexism because I thought I knew how to stop it from going too far when the reality is, I was just lucky I didn’t get ‘the one’ who wanted to take it further. I was also scared; too scared to be any other way.

I never considered that my ‘playing along’ with this sexually predatory game would be a stitch in the fabric that has led us to this #MeToo Movement.

No-one should ever have to navigate around sexual innuendo, advances, attacks or sexual assault just so they can get a job, go to school, play a sport or walk home.

I played along to survive, which I did. What I didn’t do, however, is stand up and say no. “No; our job interview will have to take place in the office during office hours”. “No; I will not join you for your client lunch unless you need my professional presence”.

I applaud the women who have stood up and said #MeToo, and I am sorry I wasn’t as brave as you.

When they bring out Harvey for his public stoning, I will line up with a bucket full of rocks. I have no entitlement, however, to throw the first one.