Hollywood’s Most Powerful Women Have Launched A Campaign To Fight Sexual Misconduct

A group of 300 influential women in Hollywood have kick-started 2018 with the launch of a massive coordinated effort to combat sexual harassment and assault in the entertainment business and beyond.

The Time’s Up initiative was announced on January 1 via an open letter published in The New York Times signed by some of the most powerful women in the industry — including Natalie Portman, Emma Stone, Reese Witherspoon, Eva Longoria and Shonda Rhimes, along with numerous other actors, directors, writers, producers, executives and talent agents.

“The struggle for women to break in, to rise up the ranks and to simply be heard and acknowledged in male-dominated workplaces must end; time’s up on this impenetrable monopoly,” the letter reads.

The movement’s aims include the promotion of legislation that penalises workplaces for protecting harassers, and a push for gender parity at Hollywood studios and talent agencies. Organisers will also back calls for women to wear black at this year’s Golden Globes in order to keep the issue in the spotlight.

Perhaps most notably, Time’s Up has established a legal defence fund, backed by US$13 million in donations, to help protect less privileged women from sexual misconduct and the potential fallout from reporting it. Major donors include Witherspoon and Rhimes along with Meryl Streep and director Steven Spielberg.

“If this group of women can’t fight for a model for other women who don’t have as much power and privilege, then who can?” Rhimes told the Times.

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Feature images via Wikimedia