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What charges of sexual assault against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein reveal

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Kaveree Bamzai
Kaveree BamzaiOct 10, 2017 | 15:21

What charges of sexual assault against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein reveal

In the movie Spotlight, which to many in Hollywood was perhaps the introduction to journalism, the editor exhorts his reporters to go beyond the individual and get the institution. Show me this was systemic, he says, that it came from the top, down.

Well, it took another great newspaper, The New York Times, to break another story of abuse. But hey, it isn't over, or even enough. Clearly, the amazing work done by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey shows that Harvey Weinstein systematically abused his power over women for over three decades. That while he was making prestigious Oscar winning movies and promoting great talent, he was also demanding women watch him take a shower, or inviting them to his bath, or forcing them to watch him masturbate into a plant, or even asking them to soap him. But clearly, he was not the only one. As the cases of Roger Ailes, Bill Cosby and Bill O'Reilly have shown, sexism and sexual abuse are deeply rooted in the entertainment industry.

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But even that alone is not the story. Sexual abuse is not about mere sex. It is about power. Powerful men feel it is their right to claim sex as a perk of being in positions where they can make or break careers.

They feel it is the obligation of the supposedly weaker party to offer anything it can for negotiation - usually the only bargaining chip that can be offered is sex. Weinstein claims he is not responsible for being the way he is (that is, a disgusting creep) but the era he came of age in, the 60s and 70s when "all the rules about behaviour and workplaces were different. That was the culture then".

I do not recall a moment in our shared history of the world in which it was all right for a man to take off his clothes in front of a young woman writer/assistant/actor and demand she watches him shower, but well, as one has seen even with Donald Trump and the infamous "P****gate" men think they can get away with anything under the big umbrella of "locker room talk" or "boys will be boys". And though one of the greatest ironies of the Weinstein case is that Trump has said he is not at all surprised by the reports, we all know that many men in power believe they can get away with inappropriate behaviour or do not even know what it is.

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Harvey Weinstein systematically abused his power over women for over three decades.

It's called male entitlement and one saw quite a bit of it on display recently with the death of Hugh Hefner, who several obituaries tried to pass off as a cuddly feminist. He was not. He was an exploitative man who built his industry on the backs of several women who got no sexual freedom, low pay and developed even lower esteem. I challenge any woman to walk about in that absurd mansion wearing a bunny outfit and being leered at by men pretty much like Weinstein and feel empowered.

This brings me back to Weinstein. There are some lessons in it for all of us which I'd like to highlight:

There is still room for great journalism in newspapers in the age of digital. The New York Times has shown that it can take an "open secret" and use hard work and due diligence to turn it into a great story.

The era of male entitlement, of "Mad Men" and "Sexy Skirts", is over. Hollywood and even Bollywood may still largely be male dominated but they cannot get away with bad behaviour.

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Women, when they speak clearly and in solidarity with each other, can be heard and can be paid attention to. Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan deserve all the praise they can get. So do the other women who spoke up against Weinstein and furnished proof of his abuse.

There is a clear issue of bad corporate governance here as it is in the case of several corporate misdemeanours in India. What is the point of having a board if it looks the other way when a powerful CEO misbehaves? Can the board seriously insist it had no knowledge of what Weinstein was doing despite the payouts in at least eight cases?

This is not just restricted to Hollywood, Bollywood or even the TV industry. Sexual abuse by powerful men of weaker women (and even men) exists wherever there are unequal relationships. Those in power believe they can extract all they want from those who seek their time or their work. That can only be resolved when men in power realise they are not monarchs or patrons bestowing personal favours on the basis of their likes and dislikes but custodians of their institutions whose duty it is to reward good work. It's called professionalism.

Last updated: October 11, 2017 | 14:50
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