WaPo | Donald Trump didn’t do it.
Nor did Bill Clinton, Clarence Thomas, Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes or Bill O’Reilly.
None
of these famous men, each publicly accused of sexual harassment or
assault, touched off the cultural reckoning that has swept America and
other parts of the world over the past three months.
The honor,
or perhaps dishonor, goes to a far more obscure and unlikely figure:
Harvey Weinstein. The Hollywood producer’s alleged predations unleashed
the outpouring of #MeToo revelations on social media along with echoing
volleys of claims against more than 100 prominent men in news,
entertainment, government and other fields.
Why Weinstein? Why
did his story inspire a cultural eruption, particularly given that most
people probably couldn’t identify him before the New York Times and the New Yorker revealed his secret history in articles that became the spore of the anti-harassment movement?
There’s no hard and fast explanation. But there are a few theories.
