As I added my name to the thousands of women (and many men) responding to Alyssa Milano’s #MeToo hashtag this week, I was struck by the sheer volume of stories of sexual harassment, physical, emotional or sexual abuse. I literally cannot name one female friend or client who hasn’t been affected by sexual predatory behavior, and seeing all the people in my life come forward on social media with the simple “Me Too” declaration is an ongoing profound experience.

Hollywood actresses are breaking their silence around sexual harassment and abuse of power in the entertainment industry in the wake of Harvey Weinstein’s downfall, and the accusations reveal story after story of disgusting male behavior that is truly outrageous. But sadly, most women I know are so accustomed to the systemic misogyny in almost every industry, that they’re not surprised at all. I include myself in that category.

Like Reese Witherspoon, I was raped by a director. And like her, I was taught to be silent about it and any other sexual harassment I faced, lest it ruin my career or cost me my life. Now as I teach sexual healing decades later, I am most often examining this harassment culture through a lens of recovery, helping women get on with their lives and enjoy their sexuality again. But this recent tidal wave of awareness has me hopeful again that we could begin to stop it at the source. How can we do this?

Tarana Burke, the original creator of the “Me Too” campaign ten years ago believes the solution lies with empathy, and I think she’s right. In solidarity, women have power. In great numbers, our stories do matter, and can’t be swept under the rug of, “Well, look at what she was wearing, she was asking for it,” or “Why didn’t she say something at the time?” Is it finally time to stop expecting victimized women to change the system? I am uplifted seeing all the men that are appalled at the #metoo numbers, and are vowing to ‘call out’ their fellow males when they behave inappropriately.

Harvey Weinstein defended his behavior in part by saying that he grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, when treatment of women was ‘different.’ Can the same defense be used by Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski, Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, Woody Allen and Donald Trump? Is the ‘Baby Boomer Defense’ going to replace the ‘Twinkie Defense’ in the history of flawed justifications? I can’t help comparing Weinstein to my late husband of 25 years, also a Jewish American man who came of age during that period. He never raped anyone, and managed to maintain a life-long high profile career without putting women’s rights and safety in jeopardy. So why do some men bully and intimidate, while others don’t?

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