In the fall of 2017, life was as it has always been. The seasons changed, the world spun, and power remained in the hands of those who abuse it.
Trump was nearly a year into his presidency, elected to lead the United States despite leaving a trail of sexual assault allegations behind him, including a leaked tape where he all but admitted it. It was perhaps the highest symbolism that the president of the most powerful country in the world could express his ability to assault and get away with it.
A turning point came when two journalists at the New York Times, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, broke a story about Harvey Weinstein. The report accused the film executive of nearly three decades of sexual harassment against employees and actresses, including paying at least eight settlements to silence his victims.
It was as if a dam burst open. Suddenly, millions of women across the U.S., Canada, and all over the world took their lead from those women in the story and shared personal experiences of unwanted sexual advances, conduct, and assaults they experienced on social media, tagged with #MeToo. No longer were women – and men – silent about the mistreatment they faced. The momentum was unstoppable, and the #MeToo movement was officially born.
Kantor and Twohey bring readers inside this vast cultural moment with their book, She Said.
In what is a quick and easy read, we are enveloped in the trials and tribulations of Kantor and Twohey as they race to publish their findings on Weinstein. Inevitably, they become our heroes, the two focal points on which we rest all our hopes, and who had already devoted most of their professional lives to telling women’s stories.
It’s told with the crackling tension of a newsroom on a deadline. Yet our heroines are chasing no ordinary lede. One slip of the facts, one second too late in publishing, and Weinstein and his team will simply bury the story, thwarting nearly two years of hard-earned scoops and trust from those silenced with settlements. What’s worse, it will become a blip in the journalism landscape, giving Weinstein a slap on the wrist but nothing more. The machinery remains intact, and vulnerable women remain targets for abuse.
The urgency of the story grows throughout the novel as Kantor and Twohey work their way closer to the truth. In gentler vignettes, we read as the two attempt to connect with victims of Weinstein, battling inner turmoil over the ethics of trust and respect within deeply personal experiences. In more ruthless scenes, we witness Weinstein and Co. threaten the Times with lawsuits and smearing campaigns if they run the piece.
Eventually, the story is published, there is an outcry against injustice around the world, and Weinstein, exposed for what had been an open secret in Hollywood for a long time, is promptly fired. Justice is served and the immediate purpose of the report comes to fruition.
Yet, as Kantor and Twohey make ever so clear, Weinstein and Kavanaugh are not one-offs. Manipulative behaviours of powerful men–Matt Lauer, Mario Batali, Louis C.K., to name a few–have existed for many, many decades, and are supported through legal and social institutions that allow them to pay off victims and continue on in their positions with near impunity.
And the broader #MeToo movement is not contained to the modern moment; rather, it represents the excision of long-held practices of sexual assault and domination in the workplace, on the street, in homes. The firing of many high-profile executives signalled the beginning of the end for an entire culture that had allowed men in power to prey on vulnerable women and get away with it. Kantor and Twohey exposed a system rather than a man.
Of course, alongside such a sweeping social movement comes many questions, and Kantor and Twohey are smart not to shy away from them. They are most poignantly addressed within the last third of the book, as the reporters shift their attention to the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings of Christine Blasey Ford, who alleged sexual assault from Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh.
This shift allows a stark comparison of a pre and post-#MeToo world. Whereas Kantor and Twohey fought and scrapped for each record of assaults, they now found themselves in a country where they are given openly and freely–perhaps a bit too freely.
Should allegations be published with little to no investigation into their factuality? How much evidence is enough to substantiate a claim? With #BelieveWomen on the rise, how far should this belief go? Should it be given unquestionably? Or should allegiance remain to facts and verification?
As the book ends, our heroines don’t have answers to these questions. Yet they, alongside millions of Americans, watch as Kavanaugh escapes a more thorough trial into his actions and is confirmed onto the Supreme Court.
It appears that perhaps not all that much has meaningfully changed, and we’re left to find hope in the disappointment.
Featured image provided.
