Reckoning

The Epic Battle Against Sexual Abuse and Harassment

Linda Hirshman

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780358305613
• eBook ISBN:
  9781328566751
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

The first history—incisive, witty, fascinating—of the fight against sexual harassment, from the author of the New York Times bestseller Sisters in Law

Linda Hirshman, acclaimed historian of social movements, delivers the sweeping story of the struggle leading up to #MeToo and beyond: from the first tales of workplace harassment percolating to the surface in the 1970s to the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal—when liberal women largely forgave Clinton, giving men a free pass for two decades. Many liberals even resisted the movement to end rape on campus.
 And yet, legal, political, and cultural efforts, often spearheaded by women of color, were quietly paving the way for the takedown of abusers and harassers. Reckoning delivers the stirring tale of a movement catching fire as pioneering women in the media exposed the Harvey Weinsteins of the world, women flooded the political landscape, and the walls of male privilege finally began to crack. This is revelatory, essential social history.

Notes

Preface

1. Tanya Harrell to author, interview, August 9, 2018.

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2. Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, “Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades,” New York Times, October 5, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html.

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3. Nadja Sayej, “Alyssa Milano on the #MeToo Movement: ‘We’re Not Going to Stand for It Any More,’” Guardian, December 1, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/dec/01/alyssa-milano-mee-too-sexual-harassment-abuse.

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4. Riley Griffin, Hannah Recht, and Jeff Green, “#MeToo: One Year Later,” Bloomberg, October 5, 2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-me-too-anniversary/.

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5. Audrey Carlsen et al., “#MeToo Brought Down 201 Powerful Men. Nearly Half of Their Replacements Are Women,” New York Times, October 29, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/23/us/metoo-replacements.html.

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6. Linda Hirshman, Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution (New York: Harper Collins, 2012), 107.

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7. Lucia Graves, “Why Hillary Clinton Was Right About White Women—and Their Husbands,” Guardian, September 25, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/25/white-women-husbands-voting.

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8. Anemona Hartocollis and Christina Capecchi, “‘Willing to Do Everything,’ Mothers Defend Sons Accused of Sexual Assault,” New York Times, October 22, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/22/us/campus-sex-assault-mothers.html.

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9. See Fred Strebeigh, Equal: Women Reshape American Law (New York: Norton, 2009), 513–14, note 234, on the many versions of MacKinnon’s student work that produced the theory.

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10. Both were cover stories: “The Marriage Crunch: If You’re a Single Woman, Here Are Your Chances of Getting Married,” Newsweek, June 2, 1986; “Is Feminism Dead?” Time, June 29, 1998.

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11. Katie Roiphe, The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism (Boston: Back Bay, 1994).

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12. Constance Grady, “Shitty Media Men List Creator Moira Donegan on the Year in #MeToo,” Vox, October 16, 2018, https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/10/16/17955392/moira-donegan-interview-me-too-shitty-media-men-list.

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13. Wikipedia “List of Federal Political Sex Scandals in the United States,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_sex_scandals_in_the_United_States#1990–1999.

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14. David A. Fahrenthold, “Trump Recorded Having Extremely Lewd Conversation About Women in 2005,” Washington Post, October 8, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce776-8cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html?utm_term=.8d81d53f319d.

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15. Nina Totenberg, “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Reflects on the #MeToo Movement: ‘It’s About Time,’” Morning Edition, NPR, January 22, 2018, https://www.npr.org/2018/01/22/579595727/justice-ginsburg-shares-her-own-metoo-story-and-says-it-s-about-time.

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16. Carl Hulse, “‘Kavanaugh’s Revenge’ Fell Short Against Democrats in the Midterms,” New York Times, November 25, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/25/us/politics/kavanaugh-midterm-elections.html.

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17. Lindsey Bever and Emily Guskin, “Democrats Won Women’s Vote for Congress by the Largest Margin Seen in Midterm Exit Polls,” Washington Post, November 7, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/11/07/why-did-democrats-win-house-one-word-women/?utm_term=.4519047cc902.

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18. Brian Schaffner to author, Twitter DM, November 10, 2018.

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1. Naming It, Claiming It / 1969–80

1. Dan Zak, “What Really Happened at Chappaquiddick?,” Washington Post, April 4, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/what-really-happened-at-chappaquiddick-a-new-movie-explores-the-truth-well-never-know/2018/04/04/c8d6db0e-293b-11e8-874b-d517e912f125_story.html?utm_term=.69aef913fff3.

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2. Ibid.

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3. Adam Clymer, Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography (New York: Harper Collins, 1999), 277.

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4. Ibid., 288.

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5. Leslie Bennetts, “Women Comparing Carter and Rivals,” New York Times, November 11, 1979, https://www.nytimes.com/1979/11/11/archives/women-comparing-carter-and-rivals-some-groups-say-president-has-not.html?_r=1.

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6. “Kennedy Private Life Questioned: He Is Called ‘Known Womanizer,’” New York Times, September 22, 1979, https://www.nytimes.com/1979/09/22/archives/kennedy-private-life-questioned-he-is-called-known-womanizer.html.

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7. Suzannah Lessard, “Kennedy’s Woman Problem—Women’s Kennedy Problem,” Washington Monthly, December 1979, pp. 10–14, http://www.unz.org/Pub/WashingtonMonthly-1979dec-00010.

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8. Clymer, Edward M. Kennedy, 150.

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9. Lin Farley, Sexual Shakedown: The Sexual Harassment of Women on the Job (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978), 82–84.

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10. Enid Nemy, “Women Begin to Speak Out Against Sexual Harassment at Work,” New York Times, August 19, 1975, https://www.nytimes.com/1975/08/19/archives/women-begin-to-speak-out-against-sexual-harassment-at-work.html.

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11. Victory has a thousand mothers. Farley claims the term originated with her, and Reva Siegel credits her with it; MacKinnon remembers hearing it from a Boston group and also Karen Sauvigné: Farley, Sexual Shakedown, 48; Reva B. Siegel, “Introduction: A Short History of Sexual Harassment,” in Directions in Sexual Harassment Law, ed. Catharine A. MacKinnon and Reva B. Siegel (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 8–33.

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12. Nemy, “Women Begin to Speak Out.”

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13. Ibid. Nemy’s article was to the issue of sexual harassment what another New York Times a...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Preface
• Naming It, Claiming It
• Making the Legal Case for Women
• Redefining Sex
• Mechelle Vinson’s Supreme Trial
• Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas
• Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, and Feminism’s Swerve
• Life Among the Ruins of the Feminist Collision with Bill Clinton
• Feminism Reborn
• Roger Ailes and Donald Trump
• Pink Pussies at the Women’s March
• The Press Presses and the Dam Breaks
• #MeToo
• The Year of Reckoning
• Epilogue: Securing the Border
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index
• About the Author
• Connect with HMH