#MeToo’s Impact Will Stay Strong—Even if Harvey Weinstein Walks Free
Harvey Weinstein, perhaps the #MeToo movement’s most notorious villain, saw his sex-crimes conviction overturned last week, after an appeals court ruled that the trial court judge had improperly allowed in testimony about “uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts.” Weinstein’s 23-year prison sentence was vacated, and whether prosecutors will re-try him remains up in the air.
Weinstein is not a free man. He remains in jail in New York, although his lawyers say he is seriously ill and they are seeking medical care for him. He was also convicted of rape and sexual assault in California, and could face extradition to that state, where he would be staring down a 16-year prison sentence.
It’s tempting to use this latest turn in the Weinstein case to make sweeping statements about the state of #MeToo and American feminism. And it does seem to be the case that, after a flash of feminist progress, the sights have dimmed for American women. The pussy-grabber ex-president, whose last election campaign flamed out in a spectacle of confederate-flag-carriers men coups and Rudy Giuliani dripping hair dye near a sex shop, is again the Republican nominee for president and may just find himself back in the White House—and this is after a jury found him liable for sexual abuse, and then defamation against the women they determined he sexually abused.