When I began writing my new novel Damned If She Does, Harvey Weinstein was still a powerful man and a threat to women who entered his broad sphere of influence. Women in all walks of life were largely keeping quiet about toxic work climates, let alone sexual assault. For some, the reason was fear. Still others were wracked by humiliation and self-blame. The majority had one thing in common: They knew they would likely lose in court and, perhaps worse, their family, friends and co-workers would never look at them in the same way.
Is today a new day? Certainly the Weinstein verdict is a wake-up call to men and women alike that when it comes to rape impunity is not guaranteed. This is big. Very big. But women without the financial means to seek justice and whose perpetrators are not famous will wonder if the price is still too high.
Wagatwe Wanjuki, an LA-based writer and anti-rape activist took this from the Weinstein trial and asked an important question:
“It really just highlights how hostile it is for victims. Weinstein doesn’t have to testify but the victims do, and they have to be blamed and detail really graphic details of really traumatic incidents,” she said. “This is why few rapists ever get arrested, very few are convicted, and even fewer go to jail … How do we move away from being dependent on a very traumatic process?”
Actor Rosanna Arquette’s takeaway was more salubrious. She said that women would not stop speaking out, regardless of what happens: “We will continue to fight for truth and justice, and we are always going to be here supporting all women.”
In Damned If She Does, these two sides battle in the mind of a young professor who finds her attacker violently murdered and becomes the primary suspect. If she shares her secret, will she pay too high a price even if it might help her case and ease her own guilt? Is it too late? Will her family see her in the same way? Her dilemma will continue to haunt women — ones I know — ones you know.
Yes, yesterday did change things. And perhaps as Weinstein is sentenced in New York and goes to court in LA, women who have nothing to do with his case will feel some degree of vicarious vindication. Others may be encouraged to step out of the darkness of secrecy and fear to accuse those who have abused them not just by the act, but for the rest of their lives in the reliving.
