Hollywood Launches Time's Up With Powerhouse Message To Working Class Women

Some of the women who have established Time’s Up, clockwise from top left: the actresses America Ferrera and Eva Longoria; the lawyer Nina L. Shaw; the actress Reese Witherspoon; the producer Shonda Rhimes; and the lawyer Tina Tchen. via New York Times

Driven by disgust, disenchantment and disbelief that sexual harassment and gender inequality run rampant in America, 300 prominent and not-so-well-known Hollywood women have launched a sprawling initiative to fight the Hollywood power structure and blue-collar workplaces nationwide.

Born with a name that resonates deeply with women fighting this gender inequality battle for 60 years in the case of women like Jane Fonda, Time's Up has 1) a legal defense fund, backed now by $13 million in donations earmarked to help less privileged women protect themselves from sexual misconduct and threats of job loss among janitors, nurses and workers at farms, factories, restaurants and hotels. Articles like the New York Times' How Tough Is It to Change a Culture of Harassment? Ask Women at Ford astonished many professional women in and out of Hollywood. 

The Times writes: 

The jobs were the best they would ever have: collecting union wages while working at Ford, one of America’s most storied companies. But inside two Chicago plants, the women found menace.

Bosses and fellow laborers treated them as property or prey. Men crudely commented on their breasts and buttocks; graffiti of penises was carved into tables, spray-painted onto floors and scribbled onto walls. They groped women, pressed against them, simulated sex acts or masturbated in front of them. Supervisors traded better assignments for sex and punished those who refused.

That was a quarter-century ago. Today, women at those plants say they have been subjected to many of the same abuses. And like those who complained before them, they say they were mocked, dismissed, threatened and ostracized. One described being called “snitch bitch,” while another was accused of “raping the company.” Many of the men who they say hounded them kept their jobs.

2) Time's Up is committed to moving legislation to penalize companies that tolerate persistent harassment and use nondisclosure agreements to silence victims.

3) The group has already launched a drive to reach gender parity at studios and talent agencies.

4) Time's Up requests that women walking the red carpet at the Golden Globes raise awareness by wearing black and speaking out on behalf of all women. Some Hollywood women have put the press on notice that they will not be discussing their dresses and other mundane topics. 

The Time's Up movement went public at timesupnow.com on Monday with an open letter 'Dear Sisters' signed by hundreds of women in show business, pledging their full support to working-class women. The letter also ran as a full-page ad in The New York Times, and in La Opinion, a Spanish-language newspaper. The 'Dear Sisters' letter is in response to one sent to Hollywood women by Latina farmworkers of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas in advance of their Nov. 12 'The Take Back the Workplace' march in Los Angeles. 

Time's Up is running leaderless but is structured into working groups that have been meeting since October. Major donors include Ms. Reese Witherspoon, Ms. Shonda Rhimes, Meryl Streep, Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw, and the talent agencies ICM Partners, the Creative Artists Agency, William Morris Endeavor and United Talent Agency. The Times article is very meaty and AOC will be breaking it down into smaller news bits.