By VIVIANNA ONORATO

At the start of October, there was one man whom was in the news for his lewd acts towards women. Harvey Weinstein, a man that used his position of power in the movie business to pressure women towards providing him sexual favors, saw his throne collapse when so many people, both men and women, came out and simultaneously accused him of his acts.

Since then, there has been something of a domino effect, with women from all walks of life coming out to accuse him. This led to his company removing him from his position of power. Now, however, there’s someone else who’s suffering from the same situation: Terry Richardson.

A photographer known for his sexual, sometimes near-pornographic shoots, Richardson has been accused of abuse during his shoots, often using his position to solicit sexual acts from his models. In fact, he himself has appeared nude alongside his subjects, perhaps as a further show of his position of power, with many of these stories publicly known since 2001. While Richardson has insisted that many of these acts have all been consensual in nature, the fact is that he is a man in a position of power over these women and is abusing the trust that they have toward him in order to receive a benefit that was not agreed upon  in their contracts.

It’s worth noting that while these accusations were an open secret in the industry, it’s only recently that Richardson has been fired from his position. As a result, we can see that there has been significant effort towards removing abusive men from positions of power, and returning power towards women. More importantly, it’s a return to form for the industry, an implicit threat that establishes that women will no longer put up with sexual harassment, regardless of who carries it out.