Hollywood’s leading women gathered with Oprah Winfrey in Pasadena, Calif., this week to discuss Hollywood’s reckoning with sexual harassment and abuse and the resulting Time’s Up movement. The panel included actresses Reese Witherspoon, America Ferrera, Natalie Portman and Tracee Ellis Ross, as well as producer Shonda Rimes, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy and attorney Nina Shaw.
Witherspoon, who stars with Winfrey in the upcoming film A Wrinkle in Time, spoke about being sexually assaulted by a director when she was 16 years old.
“There’s moments that you have to evaluate whether silence is going to be your only option,” said Witherspoon. “And certain times that was our only option. But now is not that time.”
The Time’s Up movement has piggybacked off the #MeToo movement when it comes to encouraging both women and men to speak up about sexual harassment, abuse and assault in the workplace.
“How do we as a society have a mature, nuanced conversation about how men and women should be relating to each other?” Winfrey asked. “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. What do we say to them?”
“We’re humans. We’re all humans,” Portman responded. “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.”
Check out a clip from the panel discussion below:
The interview airs Sunday, Jan. 14, at 9 a.m. ET on CBS.