Entertainment
Reese Witherspoon Reveals She Was Sexually Assaulted At Age 16, Discusses How It Affected Her
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Cedric Jackson
10.26.17

Sexual assault and harassment is something that women all over the world face every single day.

But recently, some eye-opening reporting by the New York Times has done its part to shed some light on this issue and show how common it really is. Harvey Weinstein’s career has been all but ruined by the allegations of sexual assault made against him, as countless women have stepped forward and shared their stories about how he forced himself on them or otherwise made them feel uncomfortable with his sexual advances.

Now, more and more stars are talking about similar experiences that they have gone through, including Reese Witherspoon. On Oct. 16, during a speech she made during ELLE’s Women in Hollywood event, she revealed that she had been sexually harassed and assaulted many times throughout her career, including an incident when she was only 16 years old.

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for ELLE
Source:
Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for ELLE

She began the speech by telling the audience, “I didn’t sleep at all last night.”

She told the audience:

“A lot of the feelings I’ve been having about anxiety, about being honest, the guilt for not speaking up earlier or taking action. True disgust at the director who assaulted me when I was 16 years old and anger that I felt at the agents and the producers who made me feel that silence was a condition of my employment.”

Then, Witherspoon continued:

“I wish I could tell you that that was an isolated incident in my career, but sadly, it wasn’t. I’ve had multiple experiences of harassment and sexual assault, and I don’t speak about them very often, but after hearing all the stories these past few days and hearing these brave women speak up tonight, the things that we’re kind of told to sweep under the rug and not talk about, it’s made me want to speak up and speak up loudly because I felt less alone this week than I’ve ever felt in my entire career.”

Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for ELLE
Source:
Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for ELLE

However, Witherspoon had some advice to share about how these situations could be made less common.

Her biggest solution is to put more women in power so that men no longer control the industry. And at this point, they do. Recent studies have shown that women only made up 7 percent of director roles for the top 250 movies in 2016, a number that has actually gone down in previous years.

Reese not only encouraged more women to get involved in leadership, but also encouraged more men to become allies for women in the film and entertainment industries.

Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
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Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

However, Witherspoon, among others, are encouraged that the recent reporting about Harvey Weinstein will start to bring about a change in how the media talks about sexual abuse and sexual assault.

Since so many women experience this type of abuse, it’s important for it to be out in the open where it can be discussed and recognized for the enormous abuse of power that it really is.

Witherspoon said that she thinks that things will be different for the young women who were listening to her talk. Because of the brave women like Witherspoon and the countless other women who have come forward to talk about their experiences, hopefully, girls of future generations won’t feel the same pressure to stay silent about these acts of sexual violence.

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