Harvey Weinstein

#MeToo is the the obvious theme for January. Weinstein’s accusers launched it but the genesis was much earlier with Tarana Burk. I’ll talk about her in a bit. But Weinstein was the monster whose narcissism and incredible sense of privilege ended America’s nonchalance and finally broke the code of silence that had dominated the industry prior to the revelations. One actress after another said me too. Watch a video of Jasmine Lobe, talking before Weinstein’s trial. Weinstein and his trial are bigger than life because the women he abused are mostly high-profile women. Well, not all of them, but a lot of them. It almost makes me feel better that it happens to rich, beautiful women too. But I can’t deny there is one thing they have in common with all survivors. It’s vulnerability. This is a live trial. Earlier, there were 30 women who agreed to a $25m settlement but are now reconsidering. It may be because the money would not come from Weinstein himself – it’s insurance money. It might also be that Weinstein would not have to admit any wrongdoing. Lastly, it might be because $12m would be set aside for his own lawyers. I don’t blame the women for opting out of the lawsuit. It was a bad deal. They can do better than that. Weinstein’s trial began on January 22nd with a dramatic opening statement by Megan Hast, the prosecuting attorney, who, pointing at the defendant and staring him down, pronounced Weinstein a “sexual predator and a rapist. This is a Hollywood story. If it hadn’t been for Weinstein, there wouldn’t have been an #MeToo movement nor would it have been the media circus that it is. The movement begun by actors has opened the floodgates. It has allowed us to look back at other crimes that did not receive either the press or the attention of the caretakers: the police, the child care workers, and government agencies.

When Tarana Burk, an African American woman, who in 2007 started a movement to “promote empowerment through empathy” among women of color who had been sexually abused, named her fledgling movement, Metoo, she didn’t know it would go viral as a call out to all women. Ms. Burk now gives speeches to larger crowds. Along with the words Metoo, her name will go down in history.

Bill Cosby

It was a shocking fall from grace. The Bill Cosby show was for family viewing. When he walked onto the set, rolled his eyes, raised his eyebrows and did something mobile and fluid with his mouth, I could not help but love him. He was someone you could trust. Women and girls trusted him. Parents trusted him. He liked to mentor young girls. That’s how he got away with it for so long. You can find the names of Cosby’s accusers listed in Wikipedia, 61 of them at any rate. How many haven’t come forward? 61 is only the number of women who gave their names, along with the dates, and details of how he drugged and sexually abused them. Why did it take so long? It makes me want to scream.

Cosby’s case didn’t start a movement like Weinstein’s did. We said, Oh my God, and continued with our lives.

Nicole Weisensee Egan was a journalist working in Philadelphia in 2005 when she started following the Cosby case. She has done a podcast, Chasing Cosby, available for now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. I recommend it.

The Augusta Report

Here is one of #MeToo’s achievements. If #MeToo hadn’t taught them differently, the police in this case would still be blaming the girls and protecting the bad guys. There was a lot of embarrassment going on in the Greater Manchester Police Department when they finally realized the extent of their mistake. They had thought of the girls (teenagers between the ages of 12 and 16) as troubled girls. What they saw were prostitutes, runaways and druggies. Later, when they realized what was actually happening they saw them as children who had been groomed by men twice their age. It started with the

death of a 15-year-old who died of a heroin overdose. The girls were vulnerable and at an age when they were just beginning to experiment with life. The men who groomed them were twice as old and all Pakistanis. I’ve included a documentary about the case. It’s extremely well done and will explain the details of the case better than my words ever could. The police felt they would have a race riot if the word got out. They wanted to keep it quiet. The abuse went on for years, for generations. The Pakistani men who started it actually trained their sons in how to groom young white girls so they could use them for sex. The story starts in 2005 with the Augusta Report and ends many years later, in 2018. In the end, Greater Manchester Police had 56 ongoing hunts for child sex abusers with 244 victims and 317 alleged offenders.

The changes that have been sparked by the #MeToo movement are monumental and we are only at the beginning. Current politics around the world is frightening. It’s the establishment, the patriarchy bucking the change. They don’t want to give up the autonomy they have had over the bodies of women since time immemorial. But it’s time to change. We must change.

In addition to the documentary, you can watch a special series called Three Girls on Britbox, Amazon. I’m on the 3rd episode. It’s a painful but extremely well done. Thanks for reading.