I watched the Rachel Maddow interview with Jodi Kantor, one of the reporters working on the Weinstein case, and she makes the important point that this isn’t a political problem, it’s a power issue. These are men in power, who have a complete support network of complicit people.
What disturbs me the most is the methodical way he used aides, who described themselves as 'honey-traps" to make the women feel somewhat safe in these meetings. He knew exactly what he was doing was wrong. But he had power and lawyers; lawyers who are still hounding and harassing these women who come forward; and the ability to hurt these people’s carriers. Everyone in Hollywood knew about it, Seth MacFarland openly joked about it at the Oscars.
What makes tRump different from Weinstein, Cosby, Ailes, and O’Reilly is that their power is waning, they are not at their peak. It might change for Mr. Tiny Hands after he gets out of office, but they system will not change overall until we believe these women, and truly believe women are just as important as men. Because that’s the choice being made here, not only are these men powerful, but people think what else these men do makes their ‘worth’ more than the women they assault.
Weinstein is/was a far bigger fish than Cosby, Ailes, O’Reilly. He really had the power to make or break people’s careers, and sexual assault was integral to his bullying business tactics. From what we have seen so far, trump does not seem to be such an efficient and far-reaching aggressor, but when he finally loses power, we may learn otherwise.
This is big–a whole industry has been affected. I think it’s really going to help change things.
I hope it is the moment for needed change to occur. Men who treated women like property (like donald does) have been for so long a force that has power, as you say, over other people’s lives. For decades, some women have had the strength to call them out on it. Few in society believed them. Most of those women suffered severe set-backs in their lives as a result.
Powerful, predatory men have cheated this country for so long of the voices we should have been able to hear - all for the sake of keeping power (and money) among themselves.
We, as a whole society, let them do it. After the last election, when 62M of our neighbors, friends, and often family voted for a man who acknowledged (albeit on what he presumed would be an out-take of a tape being made) that he casually assaulted women just because his status and power allowed it, many of us were in disbelief, and are now flabbergasted at the prevalence of that behavior.
I mean, we knew it happened, and we knew women weren’t believed, and maybe we even knew they were probably telling the truth, but “proving it” has always been a different story. Maybe now, finally, we will change standards of proof to align with ones put in place at colleges by the Obama administration. (Which, damn her, Betsy DeVos recently eliminated!)
All of these bastards had the power to make/break careers. It was the power they used to intimidate and harass. We can only hope this latest episode of dicks without brains is the beginning of the end.
I doubt this kind of revelation will end any time soon. I hope it doesn’t, because so many men are guilty of those behaviors. They all need to be called out and held to account for it.
I do hope it is the beginning of the end of men expecting they will get away with it, which may lead them to stop doing it.
You had me until the end. I can assure you that Weinstein also played power games on men, just not for sex. Powerful people often use their power like a bludgeon, not sure this is about women not being valued as highly as men, I think it’s mostly about the nature of power. I can guarantee you there is another story like this in Hollywood involving powerful gay men.
While I’d agree this guy is bigger than Cosby or O’Reilly, I’d say that Roger Ailes was in a class by himself. Weinstein ran a single studio, but Ailes defined the Right Wing Noise Machine - if you wanted to play in that sandbox, you needed him on your side. From all accounts, his abuses of power were just as egregious.
Remember the 12 women Trump was going to sue after the election was over?
“Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said prosecutors decided there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute the case.“I,
like they, were very disturbed by the contents of the tape,” Vance
said. “But at the end of the day we operate in a courtroom of law, not
the court of public opinion. And our sex crime prosecutors made a
determination that this was not going to be a provable case.””
Just yesterday I read another story involving Cy Vance in The New Yorker. DJT’s lawyer, Kasowitz, contributed to his election fund, and then charges against Ivanka & DJT Jr in the Trump SoHo case were dropped after Kasowitz met with Vance. Vance returned that money, but a few months later, K. contributed again toward his re-election.
The New Yorker article says that Vance was the DA in the Dominique Strauss Kahn case too.
Swamp creatures all.
Unless I’m entirely mistaken we’re barely seeing the tip of the iceberg yet when it comes to Trump’s record of sexual abuse and assault.
True (I mean, Ailes is dead, so yeah, not at his peak), but the biggest difference with those guys is that liberals found out their big fundraiser (Weinstein) and their very popular celebrity supporter (Cosby) were sexual predators, liberals kicked their asses to the curb. Republicans made one of their sexual predators president after they knew what he had done.
I can agree with that. Power definitly is used like a bludgeon on the less powerful. And your right about men also being sexually harassed, I did read about Terry Crews and James De Veer. But there is still a significant wage gap between men and women and traditionally female roles like caretakers are devalued regularly. So I still think at least a piece of the issue, esp since the majority of victims are women or people displaying feminine traits, is how we as a socity value women.