An interesting reversal is happening right now. The college women who kicked all this off have been superseded in the mainstream media by celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie. And now a new group of college women - the ones in college now - are looking at Paltrow and Jolie as models for the appropriate way of dealing with sexual predators.
Vanessa GrigoriadisHarvey Weinstein is a monster. And what campus victims are talking about has a lot more gray in it - many more complexities.
Vanessa GrigoriadisAn interesting reversal is happening right now. The college women who kicked all this off have been superseded in the mainstream media by celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie. And now a new group of college women - the ones in college now - are looking at Paltrow and Jolie as models for the appropriate way of dealing with sexual predators.
Vanessa GrigoriadisIn terms of activism, the Trump-era transformation of news into entertainment has had a deep effect on the way that collegiate politics are perceived. Campuses are a main flashpoint of the post-2016 culture wars about free speech, racism, and elite privilege. That's undeniable.
Vanessa GrigoriadisColleges are a unique space in our culture. They're a temporary constellation of humans, like a workplace. And the rules about sexual assault and harassment in a workplace are narrow rules. They're stricter than what's considered criminal on a city street. By this logic, the same rules should exist at universities too.
Vanessa GrigoriadisI don't think we get the degree to which technological mediums like Snapchat and Instagram are also changing our relationships. I think we will learn down the line that they have created profound changes in our social and sexual lives.
Vanessa GrigoriadisAfter studying dozens of sexual assault cases, it is clear to me that the "he said/she said" aspect is a big part of what makes them fraught. Many experts agree with this. But that same fraught nature is reflected in both legal standards of consent and philosophical theories of consent.
Vanessa Grigoriadis