When the MeToo movement barreled through our cultural norms, there were two extreme observations: All men are predatory or women are lying. Either every man was guilty or every woman was exaggerating.
Former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, 70, is currently serving a 23-year sentence in New York after being convicted of sexual assault. The original instigator who sparked the movement, Weinstein was convicted and sentenced last week to an additional 16 years in prison for charges of rape and sexual assault a second time.
This demonstrates the gravity of the consequences of being a woman in Weinstein’s orbit and that, in reality, neither of these observations are wholly true. In some cases, this particular man proved himself to be a near-constant predator and none of the women he assaulted were lying.
The sentencing might have stemmed from only Weinstein’s second conviction for sexual assault, but eight women testified and accused him of the same crime: grooming them, luring them into private spaces, then committing some kind of unwanted sexual assault. They were looking for a break into Hollywood and Weinstein’s connections were second to none. This does not condone predatory behavior — and yet, to so many powerful men, it has and it does. Few felt they had the power to stop Weinstein and his crimes didn’t come to light until 2017.
At the trial, Jane Doe No. 1’s testimony was powerful and attested to the trauma women sustain after sexual assault via a powerful male. “I wanted to die. It was disgusting. It was humiliating, miserable. I didn’t fight,” she testified in court. “I remember how he was looking in the mirror and he was telling me to look at him. I wish this never happened to me.” (She chose to reveal herself in a Hollywood Reporter story as model and actress Evgeniya Chernyshova.)
She is not alone, and Weinstein’s not the only show-business perpetrator we’ve learned about since he was exposed, sparking the “Me Too” movement. His second sexual assault trial provided a window into a movement that was so long in coming that it arrived with ferocity, a domino effect of horrors: NBC News’ Matt Lauer, Fox News’ Roger Ailes, television and film star Kevin Spacey to name a few. By 2018, The New York Times reported, the movement had brought down 201 powerful men.
But there was always Harvey Weinstein, the original miscreant who will probably die in jail with dozens more allegations never resolved in a court of law. Without Weinstein, we may never have witnessed the incredible impact of the horrifying abuse by physician Larry Nassar. Under the guise of sports therapy, Nassar abused hundreds of women while working as the team doctor of the U.S. women’s national gymnastics team.
His abuse seemed boundless. At his sentencing in 2018, 204 women gave impact statements describing how his horrific assaults left them damaged and bruised, but also unbroken and surviving. In 2021, more than 500 female gymnasts reached $380 million settlement with U.S.A. Gymnastics related to Nassar’s crimes, such was the impact of his abuse and the cover up by his employers.
In some ways, the MeToo movement was such a tsunami of justice that it almost went too far — in fact 40% surveyed in 2018 said it did. There have been reverberations that seem unfair to the normal cadence of male and female romantic relationships, or worse, false allegations of assault against men. That can ruin a man’s life. Not every man is a perpetrator, and not every woman is a victim.
Flirting is not assault, but “no” does mean “no.” The gray areas between those two are the nuance of life that make relationships fun but also uneasy. Any person accused of criminal behavior should be tried fairly in a court of law, not our biased court of social media opinion.
Looking back now, in light of Weinstein’s second assault conviction, perhaps it was the inevitable price to be paid to force out a bevy of powerful men — men accustomed to secrets and predatory behavior, to getting their way and laughing it off. Maybe that is the cost of the disinfectant the MeToo movement provided.
Before Weinstein and the others, the general public didn’t understand how many women had been sexually assaulted and were suffering from that trauma, desperately wishing for retribution and justice. Now, hundreds of men, and thousands of women have at least taken some steps toward healing, thanks to those who brought down Weinstein not once, but twice.
