France24 – AFP,
5 January 2019
 |
Oprah Winfrey's speech at the Golden Globes in January 2018 helped galvanize
the fledgling Time's Up movement to combat sexual harassment, which had been
launched just a week before Oprah Winfrey's speech at the Golden Globes in
January 2018 helped galvanize the fledgling Time's Up movement to combat
sexual harassment, which had been launched just a week before AFP/File |
The Time's
Up movement against sexual harassment, founded a year ago, has made tangible
progress in the world of showbiz and beyond -- by fostering solidarity and
encouraging women to speak out -- but the road ahead is indeed long.
On January
1, 2018, more than 300 top women in Hollywood unveiled a manifesto for change,
with the goal of "shifting our society's perception and treatment of
women," from film sets to farms to auto plants.
Tinseltown's
A-listers followed that up with a strong sartorial statement to raise the
awareness on the Golden Globes red carpet -- the women wore black to drive home
the message.
But for
Lisa Borders, the current president and CEO of Time's Up, the real shift came
later that night when Oprah Winfrey took the stage to accept a lifetime
achievement award.
"For
too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dare speak the truth to
the power of those men," Winfrey said to a standing ovation and even some
tears in the audience.
"So I
want all the girls watching here now to know that a new day is on the
horizon."
For
Borders, "that was a clarion call."
"I
consider this the civil rights movement of the 21st century," she said
this week in an interview with Marie Claire magazine.
'Better'
than a year ago
As the
Golden Globes approach once again on Sunday, what exactly has changed in a
year?
Time's Up
has raised more than $22 million for its legal defense fund, which has already
helped more than 4,000 women and men who have reported sexual harassment in the
workplace.
"At a
public awareness perspective, we are better than we were a year ago," says
Ellen Kossek, a professor of management at Purdue University, citing the number
of high-powered men who have been fired over their behavior.
In the
entertainment industry, several top-level scandals over equal pay (Claire Foy
making less than her co-star on "The Crown," for one) have fueled the
debate on workplace discrimination of all kinds.
According
to a survey by the Center for Study of Women in Television and Film, the
proportion of women working behind the camera increased by two percentage
points in 2018 -- but still is at only 20 percent.
Time's Up,
honoring its mission to look past Hollywood, has given $750,000 to several
grassroots organizations including the Alianza Nacional De Campesinas (National
Farmworkers Women's Alliance).
"There's
a lot more potential when you have the resources," Mily Trevino-Sauceda,
the Alianza's executive director and co-founder, told AFP.
Thanks to
the attention generated by Time's Up, her group raised more than $1 million in
the past year, after years of toiling with little to no money.
The Alianza
can now hire its first full-time staffers and work more closely with farm
workers who are sexually abused by their employers.
"We
still have very stubborn companies that think that women are the ones causing
the problem," says Trevino-Sauceda, who says she suffered abuse and
harassment herself multiple times.
"But
we do have certain companies that are looking at getting their supervisors,
crew leaders, foremen trained on the subject but because they're afraid."
Kossek says
in all sectors, "a lot of companies now are hiring consultants for sexual
harassment training," but there is work to be done on evaluating the
effectiveness of that training.
'Collective power'
Even if
workplace behavior is slow to evolve, the Time's Up initiative -- combined with
the #MeToo movement -- has freed up women to speak up.
"The
women are more willing to speak out, to do interviews -- not necessarily that
they want their faces to be shown but sharing their stories because they know
it can help others," says Trevino-Sauceda.
For Monica
Ramirez, the gender justice campaigns director at the National Domestic Workers
Alliance (NDWA), Time's Up has unleashed a vital public conversation.
"It's
the collective power, the collective voice that really has empowered people to
begin to talk about what they have experienced," Ramirez told AFP.
"It's
something like I have never seen before."
Ramirez
says sexual harassment and gender equality are inextricably linked.
"We
know that women workers experience different kinds of discrimination in
addition to sexual harassment," she says.
The Time's
Up battle cry has made it to Capitol Hill, where workers' associations are
fiercely lobbying lawmakers.
"This
last year, what helped was that more and more organizations starting talking
about how can we collaborate," Trevino-Sauceda says.
"It's
not just how can we share, but how can we partner and collaborate."
The NDWA is
looking ahead to this year's planned introduction of a bill that would
reinforce the rights of domestic workers.
One of the
main sponsors is Democratic Senator Kamala Harris -- a possible presidential
candidate in 2020.
"Prior
to the past year, I don't think that there was a public conversation about the
fact that there are domestic workers across this country who are currently
denied the same protection as other workers," Ramirez says.
She is
hopeful that the new Congress, which has a record number of women, will help
forward the Time's Up movement.
"For
many of us, the hope is that having more women elected, there will be positive
progress for women and girls across the United States," Ramirez says.
