Power and Impact (HBR Emotional Intelligence Series)

9

Sex, Power, and the Systems That Enable Men Like Harvey Weinstein

By Dacher Keltner

When I first heard accounts of film producer Harvey Weinstein’s predatory behavior, my mind devised punishments fitting for Renaissance Europe or the film A Clockwork Orange: Cover his face with a shame mask widely used centuries ago in Germany; shock his frontal lobes so that he’d start empathizing with the women he’s preyed on. When we learn of injustice, it’s only human to focus on how to eliminate or punish the person responsible.

But my research into the social psychology of power suggests that—without exculpating corrupt individuals—we also need to take a hard look at the social systems in which they commit their abuses.

For 25 years, I and other social ...