“I think he’ll
walk,” I told my husband over dinner, the day before the Harvey Weinstein
verdict came in. It was not something I had ever said publicly. Feminism
depends on believing that progress is possible, and I didn’t want to demoralize
other women. Yet I viewedthe
Weinstein rape trial through the
lens of over 10 years of covering rape and rape culture. And what those years
had taught me was that, with few exceptions, when a powerful man rapes
somebody, he goes free.
Harvey Weinstein
will not go free. He has
been convicted of one count
of third-degree rape, and one count of a criminal sexual act. This is not an
undiluted victory. He was convicted of only two assaults, despite being
credibly accused by dozens of women, and was acquitted of the two most serious
charges. Nonetheless, Weinstein is now a convicted rapist, and he faces
another rape trial in Los Angeles. Investigative reporting
by The New York Times and New Yorker sparked the #MeToo movement, and now a jury of New Yorkers had
brought down one of its most powerful. Something is changing.
You could argue
that Weinstein was always likely to be convicted; like Bill
Cosby, who was convicted in 2018 of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, the list of
Weinstein’s accusers was so long that it became impossible for even skeptics to
disbelieve them. Many of the women he assaulted or harassed were powerful in
their own right, with recognizable names and access to major media platforms.
Unlike other rapists who prey on women without wealth or power, Weinstein’s
accusers often had recognizable names and substantial public support. He
targeted women
like Gwyneth Paltrow and Lupita Nyong’o, people the public want to believe |||READ
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