Weinsteins are everywhere
Many other women have gone through hauntingly similar experiences.
Afew years back my Dad phoned to tell me that a former boss of mine had died of a heart attack. This person was significant enough for Dad to feel the news warranted a special call, but whatever response he was expecting, it was certainly not the one he got.
A small silence, and then, curtly, I said: ‘‘Good job.’’
My dad is the epitome of a tough, take-no-prisoners Aussie journo, but even he was shocked. ‘‘Steady on Ali. That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?’’
‘‘Dad, the guy was a creep. He made all of our lives miserable. Don’t you remember?’’
I remember plenty; you tend to carry this stuff with you for life. As head of a major newsroom in the heyday of Australian television news, this man was the Weinstein of the business – you didn’t get much more powerful or influential than him.
At my job interview in 1993, he questioned me repeatedly about my sex life, cackling away at his own cleverness. I tried to cover my discomfort, tried to be tough, but I know he saw what was going on underneath, because he knew what to look for. It’s what he enjoyed.
The power imbalance – he the ultimate boss, me the grovelling job-seeker – it gave him a kick.
Mercifully, there were no bathrobes, requests for massages or public masturbation (that I know of.) But the constant, daily, shouted obscenities, the lurid wondering aloud about who we were sleeping with and what our talents in the sack might be, led to a kind of cumulative shell-shock.
The New York Times article that sparked the demise of Harvey Weinstein alleges female employees learned to work around him, accompanying one another for backup, wary of being left alone with a man who ‘‘could switch course quickly – meeting and clipboards one moment, intimate comments the next’’.
That sounds familiar. In that newsroom we formed a kind of support circle; I once got a call late at night from a colleague, in distress, who pleaded to know ‘‘how you can stand it’’.
I did speak out, when I left the company after a few months. The station’s general manager did not treat it as a joke. Yes, he said, we know we’re sitting on a powderkeg there. One of your colleagues has already filed a legal complaint.
I had already told my family and friends. Even when I was leaving and knew I’d be free of the situation, I agonised about speaking out. My friends and colleagues were distraught. ‘‘You’ll never get another job in the industry if you do this,’’ they told me. I don’t blame them at all for that; they were half right, it almost certainly would have destroyed my career if I’d stayed in Melbourne.
Fortunately for me, I moved to New Zealand shortly afterwards and did not have to suffer the consequences they foretold.
When this man died, in his 70s and some years after his retirement, he was eulogised in the media as ‘‘a gruff old bugger but very fair, very tough, and he could write a great story and had a great nose for news’’.
He was all that, and also a monster to the young women in his newsroom. And so I felt nothing but relief at the news of his death, which sounds harsh and uncaring. This man was a legend in the game. But the number of scoops broadcast or careers launched will never outweigh the damage done.
The questions that follow revelations like the Weinstein case – ‘‘why didn’t these women tell someone?’ are missing a vital thread of logic.
Victims do, often, decide they will tell and it gets them precisely nowhere.
First, who are you going to tell? Your immediate boss, who’s just as fearful for their job as you are for yours? The CEO? The board? For obvious reasons, Weinstein always selected young women starting out in the business – a Meryl Streep would have hundreds of highly placed friends to tell. Now think about the likelihood of an industry junior getting anywhere near anyone with enough influence to make a difference.
If you do tell, what happens? I could find no record of my old boss facing the music in court. He stayed in that top job for nigh on 10 years.
You might be getting a bit sick of reading the stories and op-eds on Weinstein.
Meanwhile, there are women all around the world who’ll want to keep the issue in front of you. Women who have been speaking out, repeatedly, for years, and often despaired that it was getting us nowhere, that nothing changes.
You can forgive those women their desperation to make sure the Weinstein case is not forgotten in the next news cycle. Desperate to make you understand that there are hundreds, thousands like him in the movie industry, in my industry, in your industry.
So what happens next? When we approached them for an interview this week, the Los Angeles-based non-profit Women In Film sent a statement, calling for mandated gender-inclusive boards, inclusive hiring practices and lasting legal penalties applied without compromise, bias or settlement for those found guilty and complicit in these crimes of discrimination.
That would help, but it describes a nirvana that’s still a long way off. I asked employment lawyer Steph Dyhrberg what a worker facing this dilemma right now, should do.
Take it to management, she said. And if your harasser is your immediate boss or higher in the organisation, pull up your britches and take it to the board.
Perhaps the Weinstein revelations will give victims the wider support they need to do that.
So thank you, Harvey Weinstein, for (indirectly) giving me the opportunity to write about my experiences, at least.
And f... you Harvey Weinstein for all the harm you’ve done.