Harvey Weinstein is a symptom, but what is the deeper problem?

December 17, 2017 488 Views No Comment

Erin Richards: We need to teach men how to communicate their feelings to women

I was speaking to my executive producer about the stories surrounding Harvey Weinstein — a man whose alleged despicable lechery and abuse of power was widely known among women in my line of business. And we came to the conclusion that though it’s been too long coming, these revelations are a positive step forward. As media moguls like Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes and others fall, they send a strong message to other predators that this level of harassment will no longer be tolerated.

But the bigger issue is that we don’t teach men how to appropriately communicate their feelings to women. We don’t explain to them that being rejected does not make them less of men. We need to give them the correct vocabulary to express themselves. We need to help ingrain in them messages of self-love so that they don’t act out their repressed frustrations on others. That’s how we will make a safer society for us all.

Erin Richards is an actress, writer and director. She stars as Barbara Keen on Fox’s “Gotham.” She is a spokesperson for Global Citizen, a social action platform for change.

Reshma Saujani: We need to take power and make opportunity for ourselves

I joined the fight to close the gender gap in tech after a political campaign where I saw coding and robotics classes full of boys. I couldn’t stop coming back to the faces I didn’t see — I kept thinking, where are the girls?

I started an organization to do something about that, but these days you can’t flip on the TV or check your news feed without hearing about horrible mistreatment of women. Whistleblowers from college campuses to Silicon Valley to Hollywood have begun to bring rampant, closeted sexual harassment out of the shadows, yet for every brave woman who speaks out, hundreds of powerful men remain silent and thus complicit.

These men could turn the tide far faster than women can — that’s a sad but true fact — and yet they don’t. As a result, casual, small acts of sexism may hang around for another whole generation.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that as any psychologist or self-empowerment guru will tell you, how we respond and act in the face of that is up to us. I believe we need to stop trying to wrestle for power, respect and opportunities from others and instead make them for ourselves.

Reshma Saujani is the founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, a national nonprofit organization working to close the gender gap in technology. She is the author of “Women Who Don’t Wait in Line.”

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