kaen
Trying to be a good human.
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I read this post days ago and have mulled over exactly what to say about the theory posited by the poster.
Weinstein was not usually asking women to come to his hotel room They were going to a room in the hotel that he rented and was used as a part of his business and where he happened to stay-- these were suites. He conducted business and business meetings in these areas.
Did these people go to his office for a meeting? Absolutely. Weinstein often had people who worked for him in the suites or at the meetings and then after they left the assaults began. The idea that anyone would write "presumably with the hope of some opportunity" as if it implies that the women were entering into a usury situation is offensive on a number of levels. The women who met with Weinstein should have had the same expectation that any man would have had given the opportunity to make a pitch or obtain a chance for breaking into or furthering their career. He didn't try to take advantage of them--- he assaulted them or battered them. To say something was part and parcel of the industry implies that the quid pro quo was okay then. It was not. The more we justify the past as normal the more we further a thinking process that condones holding power over someone else through sexual assault/abuse or physical abuse.
Kevin Spacey is blacklisted not by a drunken night thirty years ago but by a pattern of assault that extends back to thirty years. He took advantage of gay and straight young men who face even more ridcule and derision in our society, because rape and sexual assault emasculates them, leaving them no place to go. Notice these young men have not gotten cash payouts because their circumstance if ever gotten out are more socially unsavory than women who are assaulted. Netflix and the production company had complaints even over the past six years.
Many people, including men, have long been offended and worked to stop this abuse long, long ago. This is not about societal change but rather women and men seizing the sunlight because of the women who have spoken out courageously for the past fifty years. Roger Ailes and the Fox debacle was the best opportunity to push this issue to even wider places because many who see women as "asking for it" did not think that the women at Fox would be asking for it given their political alliance with Fox. The unfortunate thing here is that powerful men who have used sexual abuse and violence as a means of bringing themselves pleasure have found a home/place of comfort with people who will justify their behavior based on history or what "a good girl" wouldn't do rather than those people standing up and saying cut it out and supporting legal ramifications for the assaults. Those people who sheltered others bare responsibility for forcing women and men who have been abused into silence. Many of the same people who purport that women who went to X or Y or Z and got assaulted should have expected it also did not stand up to Roman Catholic priest sexual abuse, politicians who sexually abused, or the neighbor who lured in the little children from the neighborhood---because the topic and the calling for consequences of people in power is humiliating, uncomfortable, requires guts, and requires an ability to feel the vulnerability that admitting sexual abuse requires. It is no wonder that women or men took power back through cash settlements with non-disclosure agreements. Why? Because they knew enough to not trust many in this country to have their back without making them feel shame or guilt for having been abused by some criminal who would use their power to entice people to be on their side.
As always, JMHO.
