Alicia Garza Quotes

I haven't faced a casting couch in the South or Bollywood. But yes, I have faced my share of harassment in both industries. I don't have the guts to name them because they are powerful people - men and women who made sure I felt helpless.

When bosses, leaders, and powerful men and women ignore or deny the accounts of harassment victims, they reinforce the idea that harassers are playing the game as they should and that the rest of us should fall in line.

I still ask myself the same questions every woman asks. Was it my fault? Did I say or do something to make him feel like such an advance was welcome? And like most women, I never told anyone. Instead, I just quit.

I was part of a growing community of women who were secretly dealing with harassment by Harvey Weinstein. But I also did not know that there was a world in which anybody would care about my experience with him.

It is difficult to have the guts to speak up about any kind of sexual assault.

There is casting couch in the Malayalam industry.

Meet them once and you're innocent; meet them twice and you're not. So if you see me having drinks again with Harvey Weinstein then, okay, you've got me.

I can't even begin to tell you how many casting couches I was attacked on. Not just by casting people, but by stars.

Rape has been normalized. Rape is in our culture. Gender based violence is part of our whole patriarchal culture. It happens all the time…. There is silence because of fear, because the perpetrator has the power one way or the other/

Women need to be able to speak out if they are uncomfortable or something happened in the past that they were not comfortable with.

I think any woman who has felt violated or felt mistreated in any way, they have every right to speak up.

I wasn't naive, but at the end of my Miss America year, when two different executives attacked me during what I thought were informational interviews about jobs, I was shocked. I didn't see it coming, and the worst thing about it was the shame I felt, as if I'd done something wrong.

To the predators... Weinstein, the stranger, the relative, the boyfriend... I say to you, 'You can choose your sin but you don't get to choose the consequences.' To the victims... I see you. I believe you... and I'm listening.

Twenty years ago, when I spoke about women getting harassed by politicians, people said I was getting personal. Today, the climate has changed. It has become an epidemic. It's happening in every place.

I was 24 when I was embroiled in a high-profile lawsuit. This was 2014, long before, en masse and on social media, we said #MeToo and #TimesUp. At the time, I felt completely alone. Visceral, hateful online harassment from strangers left me paranoid and anxious for years afterward.

The Harvey Weinstein case showed us that Hollywood is rotten to the core.

There are a lot of people out there who will try to take advantage of you or are predators in a certain way. Women must stand up and speak out about it. Also, anybody who says that they have been wronged should be supported in every possible manner.

Whether it's Hollywood or Bollywood, sexual harassment is a reality. I've experienced it first-hand, and I know many of my counterparts have as well.

I've heard many women say that they were afraid to come out or they were too ashamed to talk about it because they thought it was something they had done to promote the man to sexually harass them - and that is not the case.

I would say more power to women who scream from the rooftop about something wrong done to them, whether it is after 10 years or 20 or 50... It doesn't make a difference.

The Harvey Weinstein scandal was a clear indicator of the situation in Hollywood, and I cannot say that it doesn't happen in Bollywood.

The biggest part of what Anita Hill did was take away the stigma of coming forward, and it took a lot for her to do that. We don't have these conversations, because of the fear that people won't believe you or you'll get attacked if you come forward. She came forward anyway and continued to tell her story.

Casting couch is not just a man's fault. It is important to say this because we blame the other side always.

If someone has behaved badly with a woman. and she hasn't spoken about it for ten, 20, or 30 years, it's her prerogative when she wants to speak.

This #MeToo world, it's not new. None of us believe it's new. It's exciting that we find ourselves with a hashtag and a movement, but in general, none of these stories are new; it's just there's an audience now, and everybody's interested in trying to be responsible about this.