The #MeToo movement that erupted in Hollywood last fall and then exploded nationwide shows no signs of diminishing. It is, in fact, continuing to mushroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In November 2017, 700,000 female farmworkers published an open letter saying sexual harassment and assault was a \u201creality we know far too well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In mid-December, entertainment moguls\u2014 reeling from a wave of sexual assault and harassment allegations made by numerous high- profile actresses against powerful men in Hollywood\u2014 announced they would fund a new Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace. It will be chaired by none other than Anita Hill, the law professor who accused then- Supreme Court Justice nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment in 1991. Only women seemed to believe her back then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As 2017 drew to a close, other powerful men were being toppled from their perches in the news media, the sports world, on Capitol Hill, in Alabama, and elsewhere after being accused of sexual improprieties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, on January 1, came Time\u2019s Up, a bold initiative to battle systemic sexual harassment in Hollywood and in blue- collar workplaces across the nation. The initiative is being driven by more than 1,000 actresses, agents, and other entertainment figures. Its biggest effort will be a Legal Defense Fund, backed by more than $14 million in donations, to \u201chelp less privileged women \u2014like janitors, nurses, and workers at farms, factories, restaurants, and hotels\u2014 protect themselves from sexual misconduct and the fallout from reporting it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is \u201cso special about this moment,\u201d actress America Ferrera told an entertainment publication, \u201cis we are standing in solidarity with one another. It\u2019s not one single voice or one single industry or one single profession.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is encouraging\u2014 all of it. In 1986, however, when the U. S. Supreme Court said that employers couldn\u2019t let one employee create a hostile work environment for another or be forced to permit sex in return for advancement, we were also encouraged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1992, after Anita Hill\u2019s riveting testimony on Capitol Hill, battalions of angry women, who were incensed at how she was treated by the all-male, all- white Senate Judiciary Committee, decided to run for public office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was dubbed \u201cthe Year of the Woman,\u201d and thousands of women were elected to local, state, and national offices. \u201cYet here we are,\u201d observes New York Ti mes staff writer Emily Bazelon, \u201cmany years later, and we\u2019re having another, bigger moment of reckoning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, what, if anything, is different today from that \u201cmoment of reckoning\u201d 25 years ago? For one thing, so many women are now coming forward. Anita Hill in 1991 was the proverbial voice in the wilderness. Now she\u2014 and we\u2014 have Oprah Winfrey, and many other brave women, in our corner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For another thing, said Hill last month, \u201c\u2026 in addition to the enormity of the [recent] revelations, the media\u2019s real engagement in covering this issue today from the front page to the style section to the business section to the sports section is probably why we\u2019re having such a great consciousness-raising moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But will it last? I fret that the avalanche of accusations leveled against so many men might provoke a backlash. And right now, everyone is being chucked out the window\u2014 the apparently hapless along with the sexual predators. Shouldn\u2019t there be different levels of punishment, depending on the severity of the offense?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(To wit: I applaud the recent resignation of H. Brandt Ayers, a legendary, progressive Alabama newspaper publisher and editor, after it was revealed that in the 1970s, he spanked at least one young female reporter in the newsroom because he was unhappy with her and her work. He also acknowledged spanking another female reporter at her home to \u201ccalm her down.\u201d And I thought he was one of the good ones.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition, I am fully aware that the centers of power in the United States\u2014 political, business, entertainment, the media\u2014 continue to be male bastions. Women are making inroads, but slowly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, #MeToo is a promising start. To quote Anita Hill again: \u201cI think we have to move toward having more women in charge of workplaces, and let\u2019s just see if it can be different.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ll raise a New Year\u2019s toast to that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The #MeToo movement that erupted in Hollywood last fall and then exploded nationwide shows no signs of diminishing. It is, in fact, continuing to mushroom. In November 2017, 700,000 female farmworkers published an open letter saying sexual harassment and assault was a \u201creality we know far too well.\u201d In mid-December, entertainment moguls\u2014 reeling from a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}