Have We Reached the Point of #MeToo Malaise?: The Broadsheet

EVERYONE'S TALKING

• #MeToo malaise?  Have we reached the point of #MeToo malaise? New data from crisis consulting firm Temin and Company finds that last month saw 12 high-profile allegations. That’s the lowest monthly total since claims against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein ignited the #MeToo movement in the fall of 2017 and a dramatic drop from a peak of 143 last October.

In explaining the trend, Davia Temin, the consultancy’s CEO, cited a few factors: a backlash against the movement, more sophisticated campaigns to counter accusations, and improved corporate resources that are placating the aggrieved. (The firm counts accusations if they're covered by seven or more news outlets.)

“Fewer organizations are reporting such allegations, and if they do, they don’t necessarily identify them as sexual harassment,” Temin said in a release. “Further, fueled by corporate boards’ growing insistence upon action, some accusers are finding less need to go public. More cases are being settled satisfactorily behind closed doors.”

Temin’s data also highlighted a few other notable trends 20 months into the movement:

• 97% of all the accused are male
• 52 is the average age of the accused
• Half—or 613 of 1,227—of the accused have lost their jobs
• Arts and entertainment is the sector with the most accusations: 359, followed by politics and government (252) and business (227)

The arts saw its latest claims come under a harsh light on Tuesday when eight women accused filmmaker Max Landis of emotional and sexual abuse via The Daily Beast. (Through a representative, Landis did not respond to the publication’s requests for comment.)

The women in that story went public with their accusations, with some of them posting claims on social media prior to The Daily Beast article. That’s a pattern among alleged victims in arts and entertainment that has catapulted the industry—along with politics—to the top of that dubious list, Temin says. “In these fields accusers are still going straight to the public because the internal mechanisms for redress either do not exist, or are woefully inadequate.”

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

• Working clean? Women are leading at the top of clean energy, but the industry's workforce is still—like traditional energy—mostly male. The result? Women are missing out on a jobs boom. Bloomberg

• Inextricably linked. Former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker argues in Fortune that it's impossible to find solutions on immigration without fighting climate change. The two are "more inextricably linked than ever," Pritzker says. Fortune

• Day 1 to 100. In her first 100 days as president, Sen. Amy Klobuchar would protect voting rights, fill judicial vacancies, get the United States back in the International Climate Agreement, and "rebuild our relationship with our allies and restore America’s standing in the world." Those pointed items are part of the 2020 candidate's list of 100 things she'd do from day one. New York Times

• No joke. One way to eliminate the all-male writers' room? Ban it. British channel ITV said it would no longer commission shows from comedy writing teams with zero women or even one "token woman." ITV's head of comedy Saskia Schuster says it's in part because those all-male rooms can be "aggressive and slightly bullying." Guardian

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: The World Surf League hired Nike's Pri Shumate as CMO; NBCUniversal's Cherie Cohen as chief revenue officer; and NFL UK's Sarah Swanson as SVP, strategic insights and consumer growth. Alibaba CFO Maggie Wu takes over oversight of its strategic acquisitions and investments unit in a management reshuffle. Bloomberg and SEC alum Michelle Bond joins Ripple as head of government relations.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

• Run like the wind. Fortune's Natasha Bach looks at She Should Run, the organization aiming to see 250,000 women run for elected office by 2030. In partnership with companies including MZ Wallace, Birchbox, and Lingua Franca, it's promoting equal representation and helping women overcome imposter syndrome. Fortune

• Deep tech, deep bias. We know all-female founding teams get only 2.2% of venture funding. But the gap is even worse for female founders outside consumer industries where women are the customers. Female-founded startups in industries considered "gender-neutral" get 54% less funding than female-founded businesses that cater to women, according to Crunchbase. Bloomberg

• Must-see TV. A Japanese TV show based on a novel by writer Kaeruko Akeno and pitched by producer Kasumi Yao documents a high-stakes situation: a worker attempting to leave work by 6 p.m. Japanese workplaces often require extreme hours, and the show's female protagonist ties into ongoing conversations about discrimination faced by women in Japan's workforce. New York Times

Today's Broadsheet was produced by Emma Hinchliffe. Share it with a friend. Looking for previous Broadsheets? Click here.

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