Brit Marling on Harvey Weinstein and the Economics of Consent - The Atlantic

Part of what keeps you sitting in that chair in that room enduring harassment or abuse from a man in power is that, as a woman, you have rarely seen another end for yourself. In the novels you’ve read, in the films you’ve seen, in the stories you’ve been told since birth, the women so frequently meet disastrous ends. The real danger inside the present moment, then, would be for us all to separate the alleged deeds of Cosby, Ailes, O’Reilly, or Weinstein from a culture that continues to allow for dramatic imbalances of power. It’s not these bad men. Or that dirty industry. It’s this inhumane economic system of which we are all a part. As producers and as consumers. As storytellers and as listeners. As human beings. That’s a very uncomfortable truth to sit inside. But perhaps discomfort is what’s required to move in the direction of a humane world to which we would all freely give our consent.

via www.theatlantic.com

I think it's more than being white and male that put Weinstein in the position that so many young women were going to him for favors. (I guess Bill Cosby is sort of an honorary white man in the authoress's analysis.) Weinstein had a lot of other things going for him, such as being the majority shareholder of a major film production company. That particular fact seems to matter quite a lot. Indeed, it seems possible to explain just about everything about the sexual politics of this sad and sordid tale without making any reference to race. Weinstein had something all the actresses wanted, and the actresses wanted something Weinstein had. This led to many consensual exchanges presumably and evidently to many non-consensual ones as well. Just to be clear, Weinstein is a pig, and I'm not trying to say he isn't. But if prostitution were legal and if mores were different, all this wouldn't be an issue. Weinstein would be a sort of robber, stealing things rather than negotiating for them. And everyone would know what they should know anyway, that that's how a lot of parts in movies get awarded. It's a wonder there are any good movies, but I guess acting has a lot to do with making oneself sexually alluring.