Since allegations of Harvey Weinstein’s long history of sexual assault and harassment came to light, countless people in Hollywood and beyond have come forward to share their stories. On Monday night, Reese Witherspoon joined in and spoke up about her own experiences with sexual assault and harassment.
While introducing Laura Dern, Witherspoon’s Big Little Lies costar and one of her “very favorite people in the whole world,” at Elle’s Women in Hollywood event on Monday night, Witherspoon took a moment to acknowledge the heartbreaking stories that have been flooding in for almost two weeks, according to Elle. “This has been a really hard week for women in Hollywood, for women all over the world, for men in a lot of situations and a lot of industries that are forced to remember and relive a lot of ugly truths,” she said.
“I have my own experiences that have come back to me very vividly, and I found it really hard to sleep, hard to think, hard to communicate. A lot of the feelings I’ve been having about anxiety, about being honest, the guilt for not speaking up earlier or taking action. True disgust at the director who assaulted me when I was 16 years old and anger that I felt at the agents and the producers who made me feel that silence was a condition of my employment.”
“And I wish I could tell you that that was an isolated incident in my career, but sadly, it wasn’t,” Witherspoon continued. “I’ve had multiple experiences of harassment and sexual assault, and I don’t speak about them very often, but after hearing all the stories these past few days and hearing these brave women speak up tonight, the things that we’re kind of told to sweep under the rug and not talk about, it’s made me want to speak up and speak up loudly because I felt less alone this week than I’ve ever felt in my entire career.”
The 41-year-old went on, “And I’ve just spoken to so many actresses and writers, and particularly women, who’ve had similar experiences, and many of them have bravely gone public with their stories. And that truth is very encouraging to me and to everyone out there in the world, because you can only heal by telling the truth. Very smart, wise women have told me that in the past three days, and I feel very encouraged by this group of people tonight who have created a community of people who are champions now of a new attitude toward harassment in our industry, and every industry that’s going to address the abuse of power in this business and every business, and I feel really, really encouraged that there will be a new normal.”
The Oscar winner, who brought 18-year-old daughter Ava Phillippe to the event, went on to address the young women in the room. “Life is going to be different for you because we have you, we have your back. And that makes me feel better because, gosh, it’s about time.”
She also suggested a new “course of action” for the Hollywood powerhouses in attendance. “I just want to say, there’s a lot of people here who negotiate quite frequently with different companies and heads of companies, and I think maybe during your next negotiation, this is a really prudent time to ask important questions like, who are your top female executives? Do those women have green-light power? How many women are on the board of your company? How many women are in a key position of decision-making at your company? Asking questions like that, I found, it seems so obvious, but people don’t ask those questions,” Witherspoon said. “If we can raise consciousness and really help create change, that’s what’s going to change this industry and change society.”
Witherspoon wrote about creating this kind of meaningful change in an essay for the October 2017 issue of Glamour. “All we can do to create change is work hard. That’s my advice: Just do what you do well. If you’re a producer, you’ve got to produce. If you’re a writer, you’ve got to write. If you’re in corporate America, keep working hard to bust through the glass ceiling. If you want our voices to be represented in government—and I think we’re all getting behind that idea now—encourage women to run and help them with their campaigns. If you are one of those people who has that little voice in the back of her mind saying, ‘Maybe I could do [fill in the blank],’ don’t tell it to be quiet. Give it a little room to grow, and try to find an environment it can grow in.”
