Following her Cecil B. DeMille award speech at the Golen Globes where she earned a standing ovation among all the actors, actresses, and other prominent figures in the entertainment industry, Oprah Winfrey sat down in an interview with some of the women behind the Time's up initiative for an upcoming segment of CBS Sunday Morning.
The leaders of the powerful movement include Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, Tracee Ellis Ross, Tracee Ellis Ross, and actresses Reese Witherspoon, America Ferrera, and Natalie Portman.
"Who is the head of the group? And is it an organization? A movement?," Winfrey asked. "At this moment it's a campaign," Ross answered. "And we're all sort of workers among workers and women among women, sort of rolling up our sleeves and doing whatever sort of comes to the forefront."
"How do we as a society have a mature, nuanced conversation about how men and women should be relating to each other?" Winfrey further asked the group. "Because there's so many men and women now who are uncomfortable in their workplaces because of all that's been uncovered and aren't just really sure how to be."
"We're all humans," said Portman. "And I think it's treating people as fellow humans and — and it's not because you have a daughter that you respect a woman, it's not because you have a wife or a sister, it's because we're human beings, whether we're related to a man or not. We deserve the same respect."
The group was among the 300 powerful women in Hollywood who organized the Time's Up movement. The initiative was formed after the Harvey Weinstein incident, and its purpose is to help women all across the country who are or were victims of sexual assault and harassment by means of legislation or financial aid using a legal defense fund.
The initiative has already racked up millions of donations. To date, their legal defense fund has already amounted to $16.6 Million. In the interview, Winfrey also asked the group if they were also victims of sexual harassment, and Ferrera and Witherspoon both shared their own personal experiences.
Witherspoon was allegedly a victim of a sexual assault when she was 16, and Ferrera recounted her experience when she was still nine years old. At the end of the discussion, all the women agreed on one thing—that the gender gap in the society must stop and that they are willing to lend a voice to the other women in the country who have been suffering about the #MeToo stigma as well.
"I'd like to believe the time's up for silence," Kennedy said. "We can start there."
