Time’s Up, #MeToo, and Accountability: Why Follow-Through is Key
We’re experiencing a potentially watershed moment in our society: in recent months, women across industries have been empowered to speak out about their experiences with sexual assault and harassment, and it finally feels like the world is listening. Time’s “Person of the Year” for 2017 was a collective award to “The Silence Breakers.” Jodi Kantor, Ronan Farrow, and other journalists are paving the way for public reporting on these issues, seeking to highlight them and force us to grapple with them. People are finally seeing consequences- powerful, once untouchable men have been been forced from their positions, and women have publicly resigned from roles in protest of unequal treatment. And in the last month, we saw the Golden Globes and SAG Awards turned into platforms for an open discussion about sexual harassment and gender inequality in the workplace, and a second widely-attended Women’s March.
And yet, I can only call it a potential turning point, because it’s not clear whether the necessary staying power is present. And that comes not from our public declarations on these platforms, but from how we handle these issues within our own institutions — particularly those that are at the forefront of this movement.
Take one of the first major news sources to give voice to this cause, The New York Times. As a former employee and a committed reader for over a decade, I’ve always considered myself to be loyal to The Times. I admire the mission of the organization, and its commitment to its role as watchdog- The Times prides itself for its ability to uphold and demand accountability, and it’s one of the reasons I keep reading. Their work exposed Harvey Weinstein, Louis CK, and other powerful men who abused their positions of power, and they currently have given their reporters a platform to continue this conversation in print and beyond. But an item recently buried in their morning podcast, “The Daily,” directly contradicts their work.
The podcast, aired the week before Christmas, focused on the ongoing issue of repeated complaints about sexual harassment and abuse in the Ford Motor Plant in South Side Chicago. After devoting nearly half an hour to a deep-dive into what these women faced and their need for Ford to be held accountable in its part in creating and allowing a toxic workplace culture, the podcast concluded with its usual brief rundown of other news items of interest. The last nugget, though, stood in stark contrast to the rest of the podcast’s theme: following an internal investigation, The Times had decided to reinstate accused harasser Glenn Thursh, though he would be removed from his previous assignment covering the White House. The reasoning cited was that Executive Editor Dean Baquet did not feel Thursh should lose his job.
Perhaps it’s the context — just moments before, the podcast had discussed that one of the reasons harassment continued within the plant was that Ford didn’t establish sufficient consequences for harassers, and that many were allowed to keep their jobs, creating a sense that they hadn’t really done anything wrong. Perhaps it’s the sense that they deliberately tried to keep the story under the radar — I waited to see if there would be any public discussion, but save for this mention and one article on a feminist site, Thursh’s reinstatement went totally unremarked upon. Or maybe it’s my own experiences — while at NYT, there were a number of instances where my team pointed out an article or interaction that was offensive and our objections or insistence that it be remedied were dismissed. But, either way, Baquet’s decision to reinstate Thursh on the grounds that the man didn’t deserve to lose his job was infuriating. It’s reflective of my personal long-running critique of The Times, the Democratic Party, and many of the other institutions I’ve aligned myself with over the years — and quite honestly the reason it’s still unknown whether this movement will succeed in achieving change: this idea that, while they fight for the voices of others to be heard, they suppress internal voices on those very issues they claim to champion. The idea that public support of an issue absolves any internal responsibility to follow through.
The fact that Thursh has been allowed to keep his job, the fact that people are questioning whether former Senator Al Franken should have resigned, the fact that Senator Doug Jones has said he disagrees with the calls for President Trump to resign, the fact that Representative Kihuen refuses to resign, the fact that many of the harassers at Ford and other workplaces are allowed to keep their jobs and suffer few consequences, the fact that men stood on stage at the Golden Globes wearing pins of support but refused to lend their voice — this all adds up to one overarching theme: sexual harassment isn’t really that bad. It’s fine, it’s excusable, it’s not a big deal. And that attitude is why it persists.
But it is a big deal, it’s not excusable, and it’s not okay. We’ve all heard the stories: women who are underpaid and undervalued, men promoted to supervise women handling complaints against them, settlements that seem to serve the primary purpose of keeping accusers quiet, women who become physically ill from the anxiety and pressure. Even the cases that aren’t as severe as sexual assault can leave their scars, and can wear on workers — and their organizations.
When decisions like Baquet’s are the norm, it sends a message, one that is particularly dangerous when it comes from those who are supposedly supportive of victims of harassment and at the front lines of demanding accountability. It says that their experiences don’t really matter, that the situation isn’t that serious. And that implies one of two things: either that these experiences aren’t bad enough to warrant recourse (which then opens up a whole series of questions of who gets to determine what does and why) or that these organizations that position themselves as advocates are simply posturing over an issue they see as more of a public relations benefit than an actual problem worth solving.
And if that’s the case, then we’re at risk of seeing this movement fail. Because our success comes not from supporters and institutions simply saying the words, but from following through, from holding ourselves accountable as well as those around us. Public posturing — be it press coverage, wearing a pin, or showing up to a rally — can be helpful, but it doesn’t replace taking actual steps to change cultures, attitudes, and workspaces, and it certainly doesn’t counter active steps to maintain things as they are. No one is — or should be — immune, because giving any quarter to these destructive attitudes allows them to thrive, even in the organizations with the best of intentions.