At ELLE’s Women in Hollywood event Monday night, honoree Laura Dern began her speech commenting about the power of women coming together in the industry, especially as many actresses have come forward with stories of sexual assault in light of the Harvey Weinstein allegations.
For me, everything that’s brought me here to this specific gift of a night is connection and more specifically, how fierce bold women connect. When the going gets tough they say every man for himself. So perhaps we will say, now more than ever, every woman for each other. Connection. Unity. The tribe. I’m here because of how you all have inspired me to crack open. So first, to the women; my teachers and guides. As a friend, a mother, an actor, a citizen and a champion, it’s always been about watching how the other women do it or what they’ve had to suffer or sacrifice. How they didn’t have a team of women on their side. That has required me to stand up and show up and try to put forth my best self.
She applauded Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy’s plan to start a commission against harassment. "I feel particularly privileged to be dedicating myself to creating a commission toward protecting men and women from any abuse of power in our industry," she ended her speech.
Dern did not speak about her personal experience with sexual harassment or assault. But the event changed her view of it, she told Ellen DeGeneres Tuesday—and led her to realize and admit that she too has been a victim of both.
"It was an extraordinary experience," she started of the event. "Perhaps more than ever, to have this shared space and a tribe of women and artists talking about this industry and ultimately therefore talking about sexual harassment in the workplace. And a very interesting thing happened this morning, which was I woke up and realized that in that space I talked about how I was one of the lucky ones because I was raised by actors who told me their stories and told me what to look out for and I realized I was still justifying behavior. And it was my mom who said, ‘No, no, no, Laura, that was sexual assault. That was harassment. That was assault. No, you were 14 then, you were—‘ And you realize how in our culture how we have justified and therefore even condoned behavior as though it’s the norm. And I felt very moved by people being honest and direct."
"There was no one there who didn’t say they’d had the experience," Dern continued. "The most exciting part of it is in moving forward, we talked about the forming of a commission, which Kathy Kennedy presented, so to have a place you can feel safe, even anonymously to reach out and say there is an abusive power here, and there’s something that’s not okay."
