Women have internalized that message of mistrust. Despite the far-reaching message of #MeToo, a vast majority of sexual assault victims — estimated to be more than three-quarters of them — never report their attackers to the authorities. Many have been conditioned to feel ashamed, as though the assault was their fault; those who know it wasn’t still have little faith in a criminal justice system that routinely disregards the testimony of victims.

If a more balanced legal approach to sexual assault is going to become the norm instead of the exception, then, for a start, the law needs to change. State statutes of limitations need to be extended or eliminated to give victims the opportunity to come forward even years after a traumatic assault. (Now, in some states, the statute of limitations for felony sex crimes expires after 10 years or less.)

Enforcement needs to change as well. Law enforcement authorities need to let women know that they will be listened to, and that their cases will be prosecuted quickly and thoroughly. Victims need to have confidence that their attacker’s DNA won’t be stashed away for decades in a file cabinet.

Mr. Weinstein’s lead lawyer said her client was simply “a target of a cause and of a movement.” That’s correct — if the cause is holding sexual abusers to account, and the movement is the national shift in consciousness over these crimes that arose in large part out of the revelation of Mr. Weinstein’s behavior. So his conviction, too, stands for something larger: that some measure of justice can be attained, and with it the balance of power between sexual predators and their victims can begin to shift.

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