To describe She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story that Helped Unite a Movement as the story of how two New York Times reporters broke the Harvey Weinstein story would be a disservice to not only the authors Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey or the women whose trauma they brought to the fore, but also what the book manages to achieve in terms of telling the world how victims of sexual harassment are muzzled and mocked. On October 5, 2017, when Kantor and Twohey broke the story, they finally put an end to years of effort on the part of many reporters trying to get to the truth about Weinstein’s alleged treatment of women.
The way Kantor and Twohey went about unearthing the layers by conducting confidential interviews with well-known actresses and dozens of Weinstein’s former employees to reveal a plethora of secret payouts and a series of nondisclosure agreements is a story as important as the one that they broke. A detailed account of one of the most talked-about investigations in recent times, the story behind the story also needs to be highlighted, and this is what makes She Said one of the most important books of our times.
There had been rumours of Weinstein’s misdemeanours for long, but his clout as one of the most prominent names in Hollywood ensured that nothing came out in the open. In fact, it wouldn’t be incorrect to say that the name ‘Weinstein’ was synonymous with power. As a result, scores of women who have been at the receiving end of his said behaviour never imagined that a day would come when the hushed whispers would change into loud voices.
Right at the onset, Kantor’s meeting with actress Rose McGowan, who had accused Weinstein of raping her in a series of tweets, puts things in context. Kantor was not unaware of how the system took advantage of women, but hearing a direct account of exploitation in full detail from a familiar face such as McGowan, who called Hollywood an organised system for abusing women, was an entirely different thing. Moreover, the fact that no one was willing to speak on record even after two decades of harassment made it amply clear what kind of an uphill task it would be to get the story out.
What makes the story more important was that for nearly a year into the investigation, both Kantor and Twohey did not have anyone on record. This also pushed the journalists to ensure that their efforts didn’t end up becoming a ‘he said’, ‘she said’ account that wouldn’t yield any result. One of the things that comes out clearly from the book is how the US, or maybe most countries in the world, had a system for muting sexual harassment claims that more often than not enabled the harassers instead of stopping them.
The impact of She Said can be gauged from the domino-effect that the story had once it came out—a majority of the all-male board of Weinstein Company resigned and the ones who remained put Harvey Weinstein on leave. Two days later, he was fired, and within the next few months, Weinstein declared bankruptcy, which released employees from nondisclosure agreements.
Some have compared She Said to Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s All the President’s Men. In a way, it could be more consequential because the crimes Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey brought to our attention are committed not by a single person in power but by many men in all corners of the world every single day.