Harvey Weinstein in court in New York last month.Credit:AP
My chapter ("Witch Hunt") is mostly a glossary of men who,like Weinstein and Cosby,were either supported for decades so they could get away with sexually harassing or even assaulting their colleagues while continuing to earn enormous salaries (Bill O’Reilly,Matt Lauer,Don Burke) or who managed to quickly resurrect their careers even after convictions for assault or rape (Chris Brown,Mike Tyson,Sean Penn).
One of the men included is the comedian Louis CK,who had always dismissed (as if it were beneath him to even acknowledge) the numerous allegations of sexual misconduct that had been levelled against him over the years.
But in 2017,aNew York Timesexpose forced him to finally admit to the rumours of his practice of isolating his female colleagues in enclosed spaces and then masturbating in front of them.
He released an"apology"that found space to reference four times how deeply admired he was in the industry,yet somehow forgot to include the word"sorry".
It seemed momentarily to impact his career:the premiere of his filmI Love You,Daddy (an homage to Woody Allen,a man whose career has also flourished despite longstanding claims that he sexually abused his adopted daughter,Dylan Farrow) was cancelled,and he stepped back from the public eye.
Comedian Louis C.K. was accused of sexual misconduct.Credit:Netflix
But his former colleagues (most of them men,it seemed) were busy preparing him for a smooth re-entry.