Through this holiday season, young women have been breaking their silence and speaking out against sexual harassment. They’ve revealed the “damaging and unwelcome” remarks, “sexualized” photos, and even attempted assaults they experienced at the hands of men during 2018. The victims have been detailing their experiences for years, but 2018 provided both ample opportunity and a forum of international publicity to share their stories.
Olivia Munn, a big star in the entertainment industry for more than a decade, has been one of the most outspoken of these victims. After appearing in this summer’s xXx: Return of Xander Cage, Munn told Howard Stern that while on her overseas press tour, she was approached by a representative from the online dating app Grindr who told her that one of her supposed suitors was drunk enough to rape her. She later filed a police report and revealed to Stern that she was indeed raped at 19.
These revelations have prompted a surprisingly strong reaction from some corners of the entertainment industry. Most notably, Broad City star Abbi Jacobson has been fairly vocal in her criticism of the backlash that has been levied at these young women. While speaking about the danger of not continuing to speak out against these predators, Jacobson expressed doubt as to why the victims themselves — the ones who now can “experience so much more stability and growth from what we do” — were too afraid to speak up when it was entirely within their power to do so.
“The powerful men are going to stand by each other,” Jacobson said. “[They] know that they have this witness, but everyone else is going to be like, ‘I’m too scared to say anything.’ How is that empowering? How is that empowering?”
Jacobson is not the only person in Hollywood — or among a particular generation, for that matter — to highlight the hypocrisy of thinking that these kinds of women will never be silenced. Young women, too, are speaking out. In many cases, these women have had powerful men harass them and, like so many have done, have done almost nothing about it. But since this has become a public affair, they are now encouraged to speak up and speak out — because now, they don’t have to “experience so much more stability and growth from what we do.”
Read the full story at the Guardian.
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