Weinstein verdict is ultimately an unsatisfactory victory

Annabella Sciorra, Mimi Haleyi, Jessica Mann, Dawn Dunning and the nearly 90 women who have come forward with allegations of sexual assault and rape against the now infamous film producer Harvey Weinstein. These are the women I’m thinking about today. And the millions of women who bore their soul as part of #MeToo, hoping Weinstein’s trial would deliver accountability – not just to an abhorrent individual, but to an abhorrent system that enabled men like Weinstein to go
unchecked for so long.

The verdict in New York delivered a partial, but ultimately unsatisfactory, victory. Weinstein was found guilty by a jury of seven men and five women of two felony sex crimes but acquitted on the most serious charge of “predatory sexual assault”.

That charge required the prosecution to prove that Weinstein committed a serious sex crime against at least two women. Not guilty? Of a serious sex crime against at least two women? Seriously?

Just let that sink in. Think how Sciorra, Haleyi, Mann, and Dunning – whose harrowing testimony of historical sexual assault at the Weinstein trial (that fell outside the statute of limitations or occurred in another jurisdiction) was key to the prosecution’s case of “predatory” behaviour – must be feeling today.

How must Weinstein’s dozens of other accusers be feeling? My heart goes out to each and every one of them. As a long time writer and activist who has worked extensively on issues of violence against women for 20 years and been intimately involved with the #MeToo movement here in Australia, I have always said that, at best, the Weinstein verdict could deliver some form of justice for some victims and – by proxy – others.

And that it could ensure one perpetrator was held accountable, locked away and prevented from doing harm. At worst, it could highlight, yet again, the limits of a criminal justice system that is often women’s only form of recourse, and the inability of the legal system to tackle the broader structures that have long enabled predators like Weinstein and silenced victims. Yes, I’ll use the word predator.

Annabella Sciorra, centre, gave evidence during the trial.Credit: Bloomberg

I have also said that the verdict, regardless of the outcome, would not be a “referendum on #MeToo”, as some have suggested. It may be the end of a chapter, but this story is still unfinished: we still have work to do.

I just hadn’t expected the verdict to be such a tidy illustration of those points.

In failing to convict Weinstein on the “predatory” nature of his conduct, the jury illustrated that they, like so many others, may be willing to hold individual perpetrators to account in very narrowly defined individual circumstances, but looking at the structures and enablers that help men like Weinstein become “predators”, declaring open season on women, is, well, still just too hard. That is the work that still lies ahead.

In the US, She Said, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s account of how they broke the Weinstein story and ignited a movement, throws the work yet to do, and the issues yet to be tackled, into sharp relief. We learn about the non-disclosure agreements, or NDAs, that work like cover-ups. We learn how lawyers who act on behalf of victims can be complicit in a system where they derive benefit from large settlements that demand silence.

We learn that sexual harassment laws in the US are weak and the statute of limitations short. We learn that the federal cap on damages ($US300,000) is comparatively low and deters lawyers from taking sexual harassment cases or prompts them to steer their clients towards more lucrative (and
confidential) settlements. And we learn that the national regulator, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, is weak with few powers of enforcement and utilises a confidential complaints process that enables predators and their employers to remain in the shadows.

We also learn how power and money can buy you some very unlikely allies. Hello lawyer Lisa Bloom and her now infamous memo, in which she gave Weinstein advice on how to rescue his reputation.

Here in Australia, we have not yet had that kind of forensic analysis that focuses our attention on the broader, structural issues we have yet to tackle. But that may come shortly in the form of the Australian Human Rights Commission’s world first national inquiry into sexual harassment in the workplace, which has been two years in the making and is expected to report within the month.

In relentlessly taking up this challenge to tackle the systems, not just the individual perpetrators -- both here in Australia and around the world – we can, and I believe we will, deliver the kind of justice that eluded us and many of Weinstein’s victims on Monday. In the words of actress Mira Sorvino in response to the verdict: “The beginning of #justice. More to come, my sisters.”

Twitter: @KZiwica