'Hurricane Harvey' and the winds of change

IN LATE August 2017, Hurricane Harvey struck the Caribbean and the United States, causing unprecedented devastation and destruction. Less than two months later, a very different "Hurricane Harvey" followed, one that precipitated a renewed global consciousness over issues of sexual harassment.

The tempest began when entertainment mogul Harvey Weinstein, accused by more than 80 actresses and other women of rape, assault and sexual harassment, was fired by his eponymous company. Criminal investigations are currently pending against him in the US and UK. This latter Hurricane Harvey (as it was termed by The Economist) intensified into a Category 5 storm with a maelstrom of further sexual harassment accusations crossing sexual orientation lines, eventually bringing down celebrities ranging from Kevin Spacey to Mario Batali.

The field of politics was not spared the mayhem either, with harassment accusations leading to the resignation of Minnesota Senator Al Franken. It also helped swing the deep red state of Alabama over to the Democrats for the first time in a quarter of a century, following allegations of sexual misconduct against Republican candidate Roy Moore. Even women have not been spared, with Andrea Ramsey, the Democrat candidate for Kansas, dropping out of the race following allegations that she had sexually harassed a male subordinate. (Yes, men can be harassed by women too; the first harassment case I advised on 10 years ago, in fact, involved an excessively ardent female admirer obsessively stalking a man.)