Actresses must inspire others to speak out over harassment | The big issue

The extent of sexual allegations against Harvey Weinstein is horrifying, but they give voice to “ordinary”, mainly female, employees for whom experiences of such behaviour also resonate (“After Weinstein, let’s stop asking women to answer for their sex predator’s crimes”, Comment).

Unfortunately, unlike actresses, these women often don’t have the influence, confidence or money that facilitates being heard and taken seriously.

Many women working in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, like me, endured everything from lewd comments to unprovoked and unwarranted overtly sexual male behaviour. In my case, it was hardcore pornography placed on my chair and a boss who regularly lay on the floor to look up my knee-length skirts.

Worse was the accountant/technical author, who requested female assistants with exceptionally long hair so he could rub his genitalia against it while the woman typed corrections to his manuscripts.

Ironically, this was arranged with the collusion of the personnel officer, who thought it was “all right” as long as they were, like me, married.

These are just a few examples and don’t even begin to describe the groping and similar indignities often inflicted on female tube travellers. Unlike the majority of women, eventually I did complain, but was classed as making a fuss over nothing, while changing jobs wasn’t always an option or, alas, a remedy.

Sadly, such behaviour and dismissive attitudes prevail because victims have largely been forced into silence. Perhaps, in the light of the Weinstein case, they will now speak out and a new, more respectful attitude towards women in particular in the workplace will emerge.
Name and address supplied

May I re-gender some of Kate Hardie’s article about male power dominating the film industry? (“We should wake up to the link between abuse and film content”, Comment).

For this thought experiment, you will need to imagine the writer is a male actor, writer and director and that women have always dominated the film industry.

“I spoke to two young actors… both playing roles that required them to be naked. I knew the nudity these actors were being asked to do was not integral to the story. I tried suggesting to the actors they could say no – but of course I understood why they felt afraid to. They were too afraid of the all-female creative team, a set of hugely powerful, award-winning women. We proceeded to read the scripts. A female producer was reading out the stage directions, her voice hardly faltering in tone as she read out: ‘She rips open his pants and we see his prick.’”
Alison Hackett
Dun Laoghaire
Co Dublin

Sexualised celebrity may not be the oldest profession, but as long as there is a profession that offers a nexus between money and overnight success, there will always be independently rich and influential powerbrokers, such as Harvey Weinstein, who are able to rationalise the chronic immorality of offering advantage to dependently vulnerable women who are able to rationalise their acute degradation for the opportunity.
Mark Dyer
Rockingham
Western Australia