In cases of workplace sexual harassment, we are ready to blame almost anybody except the perpetrator. Why didnât others in the industry blow the whistle? Why didnât somebody stand up to him? And most of all, the common narrative goes, why didnât the women do something?
In the wake of a series of allegations of sexual harassment, assault and rape against film executive Harvey Weinstein, all the usual questions have been directed at his victims. Commentators have questioned their stories, their motives, their timing, their responses, their actions, their inaction, their silence and even their clothing.
This is exactly why most women donât report workplace sexual harassment. The result is a barrage of buts, carefully designed to pin the blame on the victim herself. No such corresponding interrogation exists for perpetrators.
We do not ask why, or how, or with what possible motive men sexually harass and assault women. We focus on their victims, as if the abuse befell them by chance rather than by design, and could have been avoided with just a little more effort on their part. âBut why didnât you do this, or that, or the other, which might have prevented or resolved the situation?â women are repeatedly asked. The man at the centre of it all slips out of the frame altogether.
But even if women were to react in the various ways these unhelpful interrogators suggest, even if they followed the retrospective advice to the letter, the problem would remain unsolved. The issue is not one of imperfect victims, but of power imbalance and deeply ingrained misogyny.
As if to prove this point, Harvey Weinsteinâs accusers have described a broad array of different responses to similar alleged experiences of being pressured into sexual acts, cornered in hotel rooms or subjected to unwanted advances. Together they prove conclusively, once and for all that it is ridiculous to suggest the ârightâ victim response could somehow magically solve this problem.
âWhy didnât she speak out?â
The actress Sophie Dix told the Guardian she did speak out, and loudly. She says: âI was very, very vocal about it at the time. I didnât want to own it. I wanted people to take it away from me. But I was met with a wall of silence ⊠people in the industry didnât want to know about it, they didnât want to hearâ. She believes her nascent film career was ruined as a result.
âWhy didnât she say no?â
Rosanna Arquette did just that. She has described Weinstein trying to force her into touching his erect penis when she went to his room to collect a film script. When she told him âIâll never do thatâ, she says he warned her she was making a huge mistake, claiming he had advanced the careers of other women who had given in to his advances. She told the New Yorker she feels her film career suffered deeply as a result.
âWhy didnât she deflect the situation?â
Cara Delevingne says she did so when Weinstein tried to make her kiss another woman, starting to sing instead in a desperate attempt to turn the incident into an audition. She got the role and was deeply disturbed by the idea that Weinsteinâs advances were the reason why, terrified to tell anyone in case they blamed her and consumed by guilt that she had âdone something wrongâ.
âWhy didnât she stay away from him?â
Angelina Jolie did, saying she chose never to work with Weinstein again after a bad experience in her youth, a move that probably harmed her career and may have taken her out of the running for a great number of potential roles.
âWhy didnât she report him?â
Rose McGowan has described how she told Roy Price, the head of Amazonâs video content service, that Weinstein had raped her. She says his response was to ignore her complaints, telling her there was no proof, and her show was subsequently dropped by the platform. (Price has been put on leave by Amazon Studios amidst the allegations, with new claims also emerging that he himself sexually harassed the producer of one of its best-known shows).
âWhy didnât she fight back?â
Lucia Stoller, now Lucia Evans, has accused Weinstein of forcing her to perform oral sex on him in a hotel room at a meeting about film scripts in 2004. She says she tried to get away, telling him over and over âI donât want to do this, stop, donâtâ. She told the New Yorker she was unsuccessful because: âI didnât want to kick him or fight himâŠheâs a big guy. He overpowered meâ. The failure of her attempt left her blaming herself for what had happened. âI just sort of gave up. Thatâs the most horrible part of it, and thatâs why heâs been able to do this for so long to so many women: people give up, and then they feel like itâs their faultâ.
âWhy didnât she just submit?â
The Italian actress Asia Argento says she eventually submitted to Weinsteinâs sexual advances in a desperate attempt to end the non-consensual encounter. Though she says she initially repeatedly told him to stop, she explained that the incident became a âhorrible traumaâ because she later berated herself that âif I were a strong woman, I would have kicked him in the balls and run away. But I didnât. And so I felt responsibleâ.
âWhy didnât she get mad?â
When Rose McGowan vented her rage about Hollywood abuse and male complicity on Twitter after the recent allegations came to light, and she found herself temporarily suspended from the platform for violating its rules. While it wasnât immediately clear what had caused the suspension, Twitter later claimed she had tweeted a private phone number.
âWhy didnât she go to the police?â
The Filipina-Italian model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez immediately attended a police station to report assault when Harvey Weinstein grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt at a meeting in 2015. A resulting NYPD undercover operation obtained an audio recording of Weinstein admitting to the assault, and pressuring her to join him in his hotel room while he showered. Yet Gutierrez was subsequently smeared in the press, and the Manhattan district attorneyâs office failed to file charges.
For every person who asks: âWhy didnât she?â, there is a woman who can answer: âI didâ. Criticising victimâs responses will never solve this problem. It is time to stop asking: âWhy didnât she?â and start asking: âWhy didnât we?â
Laura Bates is the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, a collection of more than 80,000 women's daily experiences of gender inequality.