Time’s Person of the Year 2017 is not a person at all, but a movement: The women and men of #MeToo, who Time has dubbed “The Silence Breakers.” The activists who came forward with their stories of sexual harassment and abuse — and made the world less habitable to predators — are Person of the Year. The Person(s) of the Year took down Harvey Weinstein, confirmed long-gestating rumors about Louis C.K. and Kevin Spacey, and held powerful businessmen accountable for their actions. They shone a long overdue spotlight on an insidious, terrifyingly common problem that has been swept under the rug for far too long. And they got results.
“This moment is borne of a very real and potent sense of unrest,” Time writes. “This reckoning appears to have sprung up overnight. But it has actually been simmering for years, decades, centuries. Women have had it with bosses and co-workers who not only cross boundaries but don’t even seem to know that boundaries exist. They’ve had it with the fear of retaliation, of being blackballed, of being fired from a job they can’t afford to lose. They’ve had it with the code of going along to get along. They’ve had it with men who use their power to take what they want from women.”
Time is correct: this reckoning has been simmering for quite some time. And its boiling point was Harvey Weinstein. Since the exposés about the Hollywood mogul were first published in early October, more and more stomach-churning headlines about him have come out nearly every day. In fact, The New York Times just ran another in-depth story about Weinstein and the network that kept him in power for so many years. These allies were all well aware of Weinstein’s reputation and his predatory behavior.
Women were sold out at every turn. Agents and managers who wanted their clients in Weinstein’s films sent actresses alone to his hotel. If the women reported troubling behavior or attacks, they were told to keep quiet. At least eight agents from Creative Artists Agency were informed of Weinstein’s pattern of sexual misconduct, but CAA kept arranging those infamous hotel meetings. And the human resources department did much more to protect Weinstein than the people he hurt.
Weinstein had many friends in high places and wasn’t afraid of reminding his victims and foes of it. “I know the president of the United States. Who do you know?” Weinstein would say like the fifth grade bully he is. “I’m Harvey Weinstein. You know what I can do.”
Some women continued to fight, despite Weinstein’s threats and the culture that propped him up. Weinstein was involved in so many settlements, paid off so many of his victims that Miramax lawyer Steve Hutensky was known as “the Cleaner-Upper.”
“It is impossible to say how many women might have been spared Mr. Weinstein’s alleged sexual aggression had more agents responded with the impulse to act,” the Times observes. CAA, the human resources departments at Weinstein’s companies, the agents and managers who ignored their clients’ pain — they, like Weinstein, need to answer for their crimes.
Not that it will undo what they did. Lives have been ruined and careers have been derailed. We’re so sad for all the women who never got to work. For all the stories that were pitched that were never taken seriously. For the women who had to have eyes in the back of their heads. For the women who were hounded out of the business.
There are so many people who just didn’t believe that standing up for women was the right thing to do. They believed that knowingly sending women into dangerous situations was the right move. But is the climate different now? How are women going to be protected? Who is going to stand up? Who is going to create a code of conduct? Will everyone sign it? We all must demand wholesale changes.
This reckoning has not gone deep enough yet. We can only hope that naming #MeToo as Person of the Year is just the start. We can only hope more pieces like The New York Times’ “Weinstein’s Complicity Machine” keep coming. We can only hope the silence has been broken once and for all.
Portions of this post were originally published as tweets. You can find Melissa Silverstein on Twitter @melsil.
