SWANSEA MUM ON HER WEINSTEIN ORDEAL
AWOMAN who was among the first to reveal she was assaulted by movie producer Harvey Weinstein says victim-blaming is one of the reasons abused women are often reluctant to make their voices heard. Former Miramax employee Laura Madden was among the first women to go on the record about Weinstein’s sexual offences following her experience with him in a Dublin hotel room in 1991.
At the time Ms Madden was in her early 20s and making her first steps towards working within the movie industry and says she had no reason to suspect anything untoward was about
to occur.
She welcomed the verdict of a New York court last month in which the fallen movie mogul was convicted of rape, but expressed disappointment he was found not guilty of predatory sexual assault charges, which could have seen him jailed for life.
Mum-of-four Laura, who is from County Monaghan in Ireland, but now lives in Swansea, said: “People might wonder why I went into a hotel room to meet Weinstein in the first place. “But I had no reason to suspect anything. I trusted my immediate boss, that she would not be sending me into a dangerous, predatory situation. “I went along believing it to be a meeting about a job, nothing else. “People sometimes ask why I went on to work at Miramax after the assault. I told my immediate boss what had happened to me, as well as my parents, but because of the shame I felt at the time I couldn’t bring myself to go into the details.
“Based on a lesser version of the assault, and after Harvey Weinstein was confronted about what he had done, he apologised and said it would never happen again. I had no reason to believe it to be untrue. “I did not understand there was a culture of predation. I thought it had only happened to me, not every woman who came into contact with him, and therefore I kept silent because of shame and humiliation.
“It was as though I had in some way caused it so kept the shame to myself. I naively thought it would never happen again.”
Having gone to his hotel room, Weinstein asked Laura for a massage and then invited her to share a shower. As the experience unfolded, bringing her to tears, Weinstein eventually backed off and she locked herself in the bathroom.
The fear she felt makes her commend the bravery of women such as actress Annabella Sciorra for putting themselves through such a public trial.
She said: “It’s only by hearing other people’s similar experiences that you can get clarity on the predatory nature of what has occurred and start to have the language to explain your own experience.
“There is a language surrounding assault but at such a young age people do not necessarily understand the nuances of coercion and manipulation as well as the nuance of consent.
“Not having the language to be able to explain to others becomes an immediate barrier in speaking out about it. A cultural silence surrounds these issues because you think you are the only one who let yourself be manipulated.
“Women can have feelings of complicity in perpetuating the ‘cover-up’. There is a self-imposed silence as well as being legally silenced. Both are ways in which the perpetrator manages to keep his actions secret.”
She added: “There is also the issue of victim-blaming and shaming. This is a major reason why women don’t speak up.
“It is still more common for a woman to be blamed for what has happened to
her rather than the blame being placed on the perpetrator.
“We have grown up in a world where historically men can’t help themselves and that women have to control their sexuality in order not to attract men and if they do, particularly in a work sense, they are portrayed as manipulators.”
Weinstein’s defence lawyer Donna Rotunno, being interviewed on a podcast during the trial, said she had never been sexually assaulted because “she would never put herself in that position”.
“This is a shocking, outmoded view which basically says victims of sexual assault are asking for it,” said Laura.
“It is the myth that women who get assaulted have somehow put themselves in harm’s way [that] is almost in our DNA.
“In fact no woman wants to be faced with predation, but society has historically put women in this position and then blames them. Only 1.5% of reported rapes lead to charges and the figures of women reporting rapes are also declining.
“My view is that women are incredibly resilient and strong in the face of male-dominated industries.
“They want to work, follow their dreams, develop their passions, and would undoubtedly prefer to be able to do this through the same means as men, i.e. purely based on merit. Nothing else.
“But that has not been the culture. And now women are speaking out against this culture they are still questioned as to their honesty and responsibility.”
Laura opened up about her experience in 2017 when she spoke to reporters from The New York Times.
It was her three teenage daughters who convinced her to speak out.
“After weeks of hushed phone conversations with the New York Times journalist Jodie Kantor, and leading up to the publication of the first expose of Weinstein’s crimes, I wavered about being a named source in the article,” she said.
“I was frightened of the backlash, of being sued, and having to revisit so publicly a part of my past I wanted to forget. I felt compelled to tell my teenage daughters about the assault and that I was considering going on the record.
“They were amazing. They hugged me and encouraged me to do the brave thing and go public. They said I had nothing to lose but younger generations of girls had everything to gain.
“I hope they are right.”
She added: “Speaking up, telling your story, risking yourself, you may be able to save someone else. It may, or may not, be worth it. But the bravery is in the jump.
“Unless we have this conversation we can’t know it exists. There is a hope of change if we start talking about our experiences in a collective sense. Only then can we see the patterns, the enablers, the structures. The worst is the silence.
“We need to find ways that women can help men and men help women and we do that by overcoming our past roles and helping women to be equal, assertive, not always worried about other people’s feelings and for men to be more concerned about other’s feelings, and perhaps learn to take rejection.”
Of Weinstein’s conviction, Laura added: “I feel more hopeful that victims of sex crimes will be taken more seriously; that they won’t be the ones being put on trial under such hostile conditions any more.
“I hope juries will have a better understanding of the nuances of women’s experiences, that rape is not just something that happens in a dark alley by a stranger.
“It may be a very long road ahead but it feels like a step in the right direction.”