The past 12 months have seen a sea change in our approach to the way sexual abuse is covered, but in some ways it feels like the real work is only starting now
How are you celebrating the anniversary of the fall of Harvey Weinstein? Cake? Crackers? A festive sob in the loos at work? Ten days ago Dr Christine Blasey Ford told the Senate Judiciary Committee: “I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me.” Alyssa Milano (the actor who launched the #MeToo campaign) glared at them from the cheap seats as Republican senators waited patiently for the chance, one by one, to apologise to Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s nominee for the supreme court who denies any wrongdoing, for the pain he had suffered. And haunting the room, too, were the ghosts of Rose McGowan and Asia Argento and the millions of people that came out as survivors of sexual assault. A wood-panelled room, coffin-like, to hold the bodies.
Didn’t it feel as though we had been building to this? Building to this, over the past year of stories, this bloody showdown between the sexes, accusers and the accused, the men whose privilege was being poked? A hearing, to follow a year of listening. And (though I write before the final decision is made) didn’t it feel like we knew, even before it began, exactly how it would end? It’s a year since Weinstein’s accusers came forward, though he still denies the allegations, and two since the broadcast of Trump’s “pussy grab”. And while on one hand it feels like we’ve witnessed great liberation in having heard so many swallowed stories of abuse, on the other, we grip a feeling of terrible weariness, the sense that only half the world has been paying attention.
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