300 top Hollywood women reveal sweeping anti-harassment action plan with a $13 million legal defense fund

Associated Press

Shonda Rhimes is inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame on Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2017 at the Television Academy's Saban Media Center in North Hollywood, Calif.

• Hundreds of top women in show business have launched an initiative to fight sexual harassment and misconduct in workplaces across the US.
• A legal defense fund to assist blue-collar women is already backed by $13 million in donations.
• The initiative is called Time's Up, and includes Hollywood figures such as Shonda Rhimes, Ashley Judd, Eva Longoria, and Reese Witherspoon.

Hundreds of top Hollywood actresses and female executives, directors, producers, writers, and agents have launched a sweeping initiative to combat sexual harassment in workplaces across the United States, with a focus on blue-collar industries.

The initiative, called Time's Up, includes a legal defense fund backed by $13 million in donations to assist women in low-wage industries, a campaign to advocate gender parity among corporate leadership, and proposed legislation to push companies to adopt policies on harassment and discourage the use of nondisclosure agreements.

The movement specifically addresses a common criticism that the national conversation around sexual misconduct in workplaces has frequently excluded blue-collar women, who typically have less public influence and fewer resources to take on systemic abuse than Hollywood stars.

"Harassment too often persists because perpetrators and employers never face any consequences. This is often because survivors, particularly those working in low-wage industries, don't have the resources to fight back," an open letter signed by the 300 Hollywood women said.

The letter ran as a full-page ad in The New York Times and the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion on January 1. It also addressed another open letter written in November on behalf of 700,000 female farmworkers, who said they stood in solidarity with the Hollywood women and said they, too, suffered from widespread sexual harassment and assault in the agriculture industry.

"We particularly want to lift up the voices, power, and strength of women working in low-wage industries where the lack of financial stability makes them vulnerable to high rates of gender-based violence and exploitation," the Hollywood women's letter said.

The Time's Up movement includes top show business figures Shonda Rhimes, Ashley Judd, Eva Longoria, Reese Witherspoon, America Ferrera, Natalie Portman, Emma Stone, Kerry Washington, and Rashida Jones.

The development comes after a series of revelations in late 2017 that numerous high-profile men in Hollywood, media, politics, Silicon Valley, and academia had been accused of varying degrees of sexual misconduct against their female subordinates.

"If this group of women can't fight for a model for other women who don't have as much power and privilege, then who can?" Rhimes, the executive producer of hit TV series like "Grey's Anatomy" and "Scandal," told The New York Times.

"It's very hard for us to speak righteously about the rest of anything if we haven't cleaned our own house," she said.