General Discussion

HipChick

(25,485 posts) Thu Oct 26, 2017, 04:24 PM Oct 2017

..25yrs after Anita Hill tried to tell us...

Hill gave voice to the silent indignities endured by women, professional women in particular, at the hands of men who subjected them to lewd comments, propositioned them wherever and whenever, or chased them around a desk or office sofa. And usually a combination of some or all of those tactics. The nation was forced to acknowledge that sexual harassment was pervasive in the workplace and that it could no longer be tolerated.

And then came Harvey Weinstein.

Nearly 26 years to the day of the Anita Hill hearings, the New York Times and Ronan Farrow writing for the New Yorker revealed that movie mogul Weinstein allegedly harassed and assaulted actresses for years. The number of accusers is now more than 50. Ever since, a tsunami of women have come forward against other men in other industries, alleging actions that make what Hill accused Thomas of doing look chaste by comparison. Veteran journalist Mark Halperin is the latest addition to the dishonor roll. CNN reports that five women accused the former NBC News political analyst of sexual harassment in the 1990s through the mid-2000s when he worked at ABC News.
Anita Hill’s testimony ushered in an era of recognition of a problem. What we are witnessing now is empowerment to say something and do something about it. “Abused women feel liberated to bring down powerful men in government, media, tech, politics, business and pop culture,” Mike Allen of Axios wrote Thursday. “It’s spreading by the day.” If I may put an even finer point on it: They have found the courage to hold their tormentors accountable. And those men are being held accountable

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/10/26/anita-hill-changed-everything-and-then-came-harvey-weinstein/?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.f7e0fe004939