Harvey Weinstein’s abhorrent behavior has led to legal action being taken by the Attorney General of New York for violating state and city laws barring gender discrimination, sexual harassment, abuse and coercion.
We’ve heard the terms ‘bullying’, ‘harassment’ and ‘intimidation’ thrown round, but it’s in hearing the detailed description of his day-to-day behavior that it really hits home just how despicable he really is.
Just like with #MeToo, when the words ‘sexual harassment’ became very real as women told detailed, personal account of their time with him, we’ve now got insight into the details behind his ‘bullying’ and ‘intimidation- and honestly, they’re worse than you could imagine.
Be warned, it gets graphic here.
According to the lawsuit against him, he called female employees ‘c**t’ or ‘pussy’ not just when they had disappointed him – which is already disgusting – but as their actual names. He would ask them if they were on their period, if their tampon was ‘up too far’ and allegedly told one woman that making babies was all she was good for.
Harvey has now been fired from his company.
Aside from the verbal harassment and degradation, he would also have women fulfill roles men would never be asked to do, such as babysit, deal with his doctors or help out his wife. He would demand sexual favours and tell women himself that they would receive opportunities dependent on how they looked on that day.
Wait, it gets worse.
Allegedly, he also had misogynist taskforces made up of women assigned to do various degrading duties.
One group, dubbed his ‘wing-women’, were tasked with helping him meet young women hopeful to succeed in his company. They were made to teach them how to keep him happy, which included ‘smelling good’, wearing particular clothing and high heels, as well as introducing him to new women.
Gwyneth Paltrow spoke out about Harvey Weinstein’s abuse.
Another group had to facilitate said meet-ups, communicating with the so-called ‘Friends of Harvey’ on company computers and phones. They would have to clean up after his visits with women, including returning items of clothing that were left behind, plus provide erectile dysfunction shots- which some of them even had to personally administer for him.
If you’re not already on the verge of throwing up, the final group were in charge meeting women Weinstein wanted to sleep with and told to ensure that his ‘promise of employment opportunities to women who met with [Weinstein’s] favor’ were fulfilled. Of course, ‘male creative executives were not forced to take these kinds of meetings.’, the lawsuit states.
All of this behavior was demonstrated in front of other senior executives, including brother Bob Weinstein, and when reported to HR were essentially ignored. Those who accused him of ‘serious misconduct’ would end up leaving the company, all of this without being able to publically address his depravity because of non-disclosure agreements.
Lorde and Harvey Weinstien
When executives did have the opportunity to fire him, when his contract ended in 2015, they instead chose to amend his contract with a prohibition clause that stated he would have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars should he violate the company’s code of conduct. Essentially, it monetized his behavior instead of firing him.
But it’s not the cover-up that’s so bleak about this situation, that much we expected from an industry laden with sexual harassment, it’s his behavior itself. We knew he was a disgusting excuse for a human, but this level of open, blatant hatred of women?
This wasn’t a behind-closed doors, seedy creep who was so insecure he needed to coerce women into bed –which is not a justification at all, but an assumption many have made from his previously known actions – this was a man who paraded his misogyny like a badge of honour.
And now we really think of, it shouldn’t come as a surprise.
A toxically masculine man with too much power who felt entitled to women’s bodies? Of course he hated women. We seem to place these expectations on him, still now, that he must’ve done this in private because how else could it go ignored for so long? Because how could such horrendous behavior continue for so long, in an industry more reported on than any other, with not so much as a whisper in the press?
We attempt to justify his behavior as an insecurity, a fault in his brain that made him need to flaunt his power over women, but in reality, he is the same product of patriarchal norms that all of us are subject too. We’re all taught that men are more entitled to our bodies than we are to our own, so much so that we still treat sex as if all about male pleasure (just check out how different sex education is in schools). It’s easy to rationalize his behavior as rooted in deep self-hatred, what’s harder to admit is that it’s rooted in a place of misogyny that we’re all exposed to from birth.
Meryl Streep and Jessica Chastain with Harvey
The way that we assign different norms to different genders, it all makes a difference in our expectations of each other as we grow, and when you really understand how entrenched patriarchal norms are in our society it doesn’t come as a surprise that this man acted this way.
He gave us all the clues, we just didn’t want to listen because it’s so fucking terrible to know that this is the way some men still think.
It’s time to wake up and tackle the root of misogyny, not give bullshit sex addiction help for self-improvement. It’s not a self-improvement problem, it’s a society improvement problem.
This story originally published on our sister site, The Debrief.
