After a slew of women came forward recently with their sexual harassment allegations against Hollywood tycoon Harvey Weinstein, many other actresses have gathered courage to speak out and open up about their experiences of being subjected to sexual misconduct.
Also read: Harvey Weinstein falls from power amid sexual assault allegations
Recently, many Hollywood actresses including Blake Lively, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Lawrence, Lili Reinhart have opened up about the horrifying experiences.
Adding to that, actress Molly Ringwald has recently written a column in The New Yorker in which she has recounted her interaction as a 20-year-old with Harvey Weinstein.
Although the actress did not face any harassment by the disgraced producer, she faced sexual harassment for quite a few times and that happened over the span of her career.
"While my own Harvey story may be different, I have had plenty of Harveys of my own over the years, enough to feel a sickening shock of recognition," she wrote.
"When I was 13, a 50-year-old crew member told me that he would teach me to dance, and then proceeded to push against me with an erection. When I was 14, a married film director stuck his tongue in my mouth on set.
"At a time when I was trying to figure out what it meant to become a sexually viable young woman, at every turn some older guy tried to help speed up the process."
Speaking of Harvey Weinstein scandal, the Riverdale actress went on to explain, "Thankfully, I wasn't cajoled into a taxi, nor did I have to turn down giving or getting a massage," Ringwald wrote. "I was lucky. Or perhaps it was because, at that moment in time, I was the one with more power."
In her column, 49-year-old actress penned down one of her horrific experiences — Ringwald was forced by a director to allow a lead actor to put a dog collar around her neck during an audition. The most brutal part is that her agent jokingly responded upon this issue when she tearfully reported him about it.
"I don't know if the collar ever made it on me, because that's the closest I've had to an out-of-body experience," she wrote. "I'd like to think that I just walked out, but, more than likely, there's an old VHS tape, disintegrating in a drawer somewhere, of me trying to remember lines with a dog collar around my neck in front of a young man I once had a crush on."
"I sobbed in the parking lot and, when I got home and called my agent to tell him what happened, he laughed and said, "Well, I guess that's one for the memoirs...." Ringwald immediately fired the agent.
The actress explained why she never talked about these in public because "stories like these have never been taken seriously".
"Women are shamed, told they are uptight, nasty, bitter, can't take a joke, are too sensitive. And the men? Well, if they're lucky, they might get elected President."
She concluded: "I hope that young women will one day no longer feel that they have to work twice as hard for less money and recognition, backward and in heels. It's time. Women have resounded their cri de coeur. Listen."
