#WhyWomenDontReport
Sexual assault and the conversation of sexual assault is not a new concept, nothing new. It happens every day and will unfortunately still occur.
It is a frequent occurrence in the entertainment industry, especially with young, aspiring actresses who are at the start of their career, though assault does not discriminate against any industry. Regardless of age, men and women are harassed; however, the younger or less experienced (in terms of the work field) a person is, the more vulnerable they are to assault from their male co-workers and higher-ups. And even worse, their stories may not always be believed because people with more power silence them and use their power to their own advantage.
Actress Ellen Paige has commented on sexual abuse in the media: “Look at the history of what’s happened to minors who’ve described sexual abuse in Hollywood. Some of them are no longer with us, lost to substance abuse and suicide. Their victimizers? Still working. Protected even as I write this. You know who they are; they’ve been discussed behind closed doors as often as Weinstein was.” Such celebrities as Rosanna Arquette justify this by claiming that people like Weinstein have ruined their careers, and this happens all the time when there’s a power dynamic involved. Former child actor Corey Feldman has publicly spoken out about the substance abuse and subsequent suicide of friend and actor Corey Haim, who is just one of the many examples of actors as described by Paige. Asia Argento, one of Weinstein’s victims, expressed to The New Yorker that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her and she had not spoken out until now because “I know he has crushed a lot of people before. That’s why this story -- in my case, it’s 20 years old; some of them are older -- has never come out.”
Vocalizing sexual assault does not come easy to the victim, especially when there are power relations and a clear superiority complex that invalidates or at the very least not prioritizes the stories of the assault victims. One such example includes one of Weinstein’s victims, model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez who actually did go to NYPD in 2015 to accuse Weinstein and they sent her to record a confession from him. Despite voice recording evidence, which revealed Weinstein admitting his assault to Gutierrez and forcibly coaxing her into his room, the police deemed the evidence as not substantial. She and other women eventually signed a non-disclosure agreement so that their accusations would not make it into the press. A lot of actresses or just women in general are too afraid to jeopardize their career and any other possible opportunities if they do not comply to their assaulters. However, this was not an issue for Gutierrez who courageously and intuitively went to the police, only to be ignored and silenced.
The allegations against Weinstein remain remarkably similar to each other. These allegations include how he would isolate his victims, proposition them, ask them to massage him, touch them in vulnerable areas, or overtly masturbate in front them. Sickening, right? Isolation, sedation, and coercion are common tactics when it comes to assault. Bill Cosby, who also had a lot of rumors speculating him that happened to be true, would drug his victims as well.
The idea of Harvey Weinstein being, for lack of a better word, a perv, is not a new idea either. And numerous jokes have surfaced over the years, suggesting that this had been a rumor. The most notable joke includes the 2013 Academy Awards, in which Seth MacFarlane joked, “Congratulations you five ladies no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein.” MacFarlane has recently noted that the joke was predicated on Jessica Barth’s accusations against Weinstein.
According to Ana Kasparian from The Young Turks, a progressive Youtube broadcast news channel, “He got away with it for so long--for decades! And what’s amazing was that it was like this dirty little secret.” Quentin Tarantino admits that he had known about this secret about Weinstein and his reputation for harassing women and regrettably so.
In a recent interview, he said, “I knew enough to do more than I did. . . . I’m calling on the other guys who knew more to not be scared. Don’t just give out statements. Acknowledge that there was something rotten in Denmark. Vow to do better by our sisters.”
He calls himself out and apologizes for not using his power and voice to prevent other women from experiencing this assault in the industry, especially as his past girlfriend, Maria Sordino, was assaulted by Weinstein herself.
Through Tarantino’s confession and Terry Crews (among other male celebrities who have admitted to being assaulted), we are continuously recognizing that sexual assault is not just a woman’s issue; it is a human issue that affects our brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles and nephews and nieces and friends alike, whether we are victims, supporters of victims, the voice of the victim, the ear for the victim, or the witness.
Rape culture is essentially the perpetuation of silencing women who have been assaulted and encouraging boys and men to objectify and violate women. If we do not actually educate young men and women, the new generations, about consent, STI’s, and recovery and support, “locker room talk” will still be a thing, men and women’s stories will still not be believed while the perpetrator gets away with a “get out of jail free” card. A lot of this silencing actually may take decades to come out.
At Elle’s Women in Hollywood event mid-October, Reese Witherspoon, for example, discussed, “I have my own experiences that have come back to me very vividly and I have found it hard to sleep, hard to think, hard to communicate. A lot of the feelings I’ve been having about anxiety, about being honest, the guilt for not speaking up earlier or taking action.”
She continued, “And I wish I could tell you that that was [the only] incident in my career [when assaulted at age 16], but sadly, it wasn’t. I’ve had multiple experiences of harassment and sexual assault, and I don’t speak about them very often, but after hearing all the stories these past few days and hearing these brave women speak up . . . the things that we’re kind of told to sweep under the rug and not talk about, it’s made me want to speak up and speak up loudly because I felt less alone this week than I’ve ever felt in my entire career.”
We still live in a reality when women are silenced and accused of seducing men as if men are uncontrollably impulsive and weak in the knees for some female skin. The irony in this argument is that men are usually depicted as strong and authoritative; however, in the court of law, they can be seen as weak as we justify that they couldn’t help themselves. And let’s not get started on Brock Turner.
Let’s be real, Weinstein is a grown man; he knows what he’s been doing, even though he denies the allegations of 13+ victims. First of all, the numbers are climbing; don’t deny that, Mr. Weinstein. Second of all, the fact that you think you could get away with it is deplorable. You’re just an older bully, the way you lure and trap women, then provoke their dignities and prey on their vulnerabilities. Though he has been fired from his own company, The Weinstein Company, he and his team claim that he “resigned,” which says a lot about how he likes to sweep things under the rug.
If a rapist doesn’t take accountability for his or her actions, they must consider not only what they have to live with, but what their victim(s) has/have to live with for the rest of their lives. These experiences are not forgettable and correlate with numerous long-term mental, emotional, social, and even physiological effects.
So Weinstein did us a favor. We’re talking about sexual assault by the masses now. We’re having discussions about this issue because they greatly violate our bodies and cause us much trauma, anguish and more.
If you’re a sexual assault victim and you’re ready to come out, use the #metoo. We need to hear YOUR story and if you’re not ready, take your time, but do not give your harasser the power they get off on. We need other victims who may not know that there are other victims out there to know that they are not alone; their experiences are very common.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit these resources for more information: End Rape on Campus (http://endrapeoncampus.org), Know Your IX (https://www.knowyourix.org), National Sexual Violence Resource Center (https://www.nsvrc.org), and RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network) (https://www.rainn.org).
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