Sexual Assault
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Carey Mulligan’s ‘Promising Young Woman’ debuts in a culture that’s taking a colder attitude toward survivors’ rage
When the trailers for Promising Young Woman arrived last spring, they were greeted with celebration. The movie looked amazing. The script, by Killing Eve showrunner Emerald Fennell, had already earned a ton of industry buzz. And the premise — a sadistic young woman (played by Carey Mulligan) hunts down and torments the people involved in an old college rape case — was impossibly well-aligned with the ethos of the #MeToo era. This was the story of an enraged woman taking down men who had been living consequence-free for too long.
Now, after a series of Covid-19-related delays, Promising Young Woman…
An interview in Hong Kong lingers with me until this day, six months after he was sentenced to prison
This essay contains a description of sexual assault.
I met Harvey Weinstein in 2014. I was reporting on politics for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong when a friend of a friend asked me to translate during his dinner meeting. At the restaurant, Harvey introduced himself with brio. He was charming and tenacious and said he was in town working on several important projects. He wanted to talk to the press. We agreed to an interview, and his assistant took my information.
A few days later at the Mandarin Oriental, his assistant arrived 30 minutes late and informed…
In the yoga world’s latest #MeToo episode, activists are rising up against the spiritual institution that failed them
In January, I reported that one of the world’s most celebrated yoga empires was shaken to its core by a single Facebook post. Julie Salter, 63, had turned the polished branding of Sivananda yoga inside out by writing that its founding saint, Swami Vishnudevananda, had sexually and physically abused her during the 11 years she’d spent as his unpaid personal assistant, prior to his death in 1993. The organization has responded by launching an independent investigation, and individual centers are debating whether to remove the guru’s portrait from its altars around the world. …
Column
Why did so many women expect Harvey Weinstein to walk?
On Monday, a New York jury handed down two guilty verdicts in the charges against disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein — felony crimes that put him in prison for anywhere from five to 29 years. Weinstein was also acquitted of three other, more serious, crimes.
I was legitimately shocked. And I’m not the only one — nearly every woman I know was expecting a “not guilty” verdict in his trial. Not because we weren’t fully convinced of his guilt or that there wasn’t an abundance of evidence, but because women are so used to losing. …
COLUMN
Women’s bodies are up for grabs, even at the doctor’s office
Two months ago I had surgery to fix a broken nose, and I was downright panicked about going under anesthesia. I hated the idea of being put out and of not being in control. It was terrifying. A few hours after I woke up, I noticed that my upper arms had some small bruises on them — probably from being readjusted during surgery. I was fine, but it was strange to think about being moved around while I was completely unconscious. …
What if women started to believe each other—and found power in the process?
One of the biggest turning points in America around domestic violence wasn’t a public-awareness campaign or a piece of legislation — it was an instant camera. In the 1980s, thanks to Polaroid pictures, women in hospitals and shelters could immediately take shots of their injuries and use them in court if they wanted their abusers prosecuted.
Sometimes, though, the Polaroids never even saw the light of day. Women kept them tucked away in a safe or in the back of their closet — just in case. …
Two years after women started telling their stories in public, mass confession is giving way to legal actions
#MeToo was always a coming out. What if, actress Alyssa Milano asked on Twitter in October 2017, everyone who had been “sexually harassed or assaulted writes ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet”? Tweet #MeToo, come out: It wasn’t the first time that self-revelation started a political movement.
The whole two-year process has resembled nothing so much as that leading up to the first gay pride march in 1970, which started with a handful of brave souls in front of the Stonewall Inn. Every block they traversed brought out more gay and lesbian marchers, filling Sixth Avenue. …
Who really faces consequences in a post-#MeToo world?
This past weekend, comedian and nonconsensual exhibitionist Louis C.K. performed a stand-up set in Akron, Ohio. Apparently his performance, held at the 1,458-seat Goodyear Theater, went fine. Next week he’ll be in Reading, Pennsylvania. Then Alabama. Tickets to see him perform run between $37 and $112.
Akron didn’t sell out, but the show in Reading has. There haven’t been any big, news-making protests outside of his shows yet. There might not ever be. He’s carefully selected cities where he believes he won’t face a harsh backlash, places very unlike New York, where he lives. …
Everything from furniture selection to the fact that upperclassmen are more likely to have single rooms increases the risk of assault
Discussions of campus sexual assault prevention tend to focus on alcohol, pathological perpetrators, and the culture of toxic masculinity. As important as these are, they’re also extremely difficult to change. After spending the last five years researching, analyzing, and writing about sexual assault — including interviewing 151 Columbia University students about their experiences — we have found several less obvious ways of understanding why assault happens. These point to an entirely different, and very concrete, set of strategies to make sexual assault less common on college campuses and beyond.
We’re talking about things like furniture.
It may seem absurd at…
Weinstein’s ‘Proper Narrative’ Powerpoint shows how abusive men are able to control how they’re covered
Harvey Weinstein expects to retain his power. The disgraced producer, whose very public downfall catalyzed the #MeToo movement, stands accused of sexual assault and harassment by 100 women. His New York rape trial, which started this week, could plausibly put him in prison; he will also face a second rape trial in California. Yet Harvey Weinstein still believes he can get away with it, and he may not be wrong: His publicity team has been sending a victim-smearing PowerPoint document, entitled “The Proper Narrative for Addressing the Harvey Weinstein Case,” to reporters since at least July. Until this week, none…
