Women have then been (and often still are) placed in no-win situations by sexual harassers: if they say yes to a sexual harasser, then he may get tired of them and then they lose their job; if they say no, then he may go into ego shock and not hire them, not promote them or terminate them. So for many women who were victimized in this way, they were very angry about what happened.

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Some took that anger about harassment, pushed it deep down inside of themselves and held it there for years. For many, it's become very self-destructive: In some cases, they’ve turned to alcohol or drugs to try to escape from that anger or suppress it; in others, they turned their anger outward against family, friends or coworkers. Those who have come forward have taken that anger and released it, and many of them are now using it as a source of energy, turned outward to help bring change.

For many years, many women who were victimized were governed by fear — the fear of retaliation if they spoke up and spoke out against sexual harassment. That fear was real: They perceived that they would be harmed if they challenged the person who was sexually harassing them. But I tell women to try to substitute their fear with information about what your rights are, and then assert your rights. And now, so many women are speaking up and they're speaking out.

The allegations that Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed many women have caused many women to say “me too” (as in the hashtag #metoo) and to talk about what they have suffered at their workplaces. It’s a very important conversation but, in addition to speaking out, women need to assert their legal rights — to compensation for therapy bills they may need, medical bills if there's physical harm, lost wages, pain and suffering. I believe that the cost of sexual harassment should be borne by the wrongdoer, not by the victim. Right now, however, if women do not assert their rights, they are bearing the cost of their own victimization, and that's wrong.