At 76, the renowned women’s rights lawyer Gloria Allred shows no sign of letting up.
In the post-Weinstein era, she’s busier than ever, claiming there are many high-profile men guilty of sexual misconduct who have not yet been exposed and are terrified their victims will speak out at any moment.
Allred, famous for representing women allegedly wronged by well-known men, including Bill Cosby, Donald Trump and Roman Polanski, said: “This has become more than ever the year of empowerment for women. The fear has been abandoned and women don’t want to suffer in silence any more.
“There are many men who have been wrongdoers and are living in fear now that they may wake up the next day and there is going to be a reckoning … that they may be next.”
Allred has spent 42 years fighting for the rights of women and minorities. Described as a “master of the press conference”, she often appears on television hoping to sway the court of public opinion. Dressed in a tailored, brightly-coloured suit (frequently “all red”), she holds the hands of her clients as they accuse famous men in politics, Hollywood, sport and business of sexual misbehaviour.
“There definitely are more names. Whether they will be coming out I can’t say because that is going to be up to my client,” she said. “I’m there to serve my client and so I don’t make any predictions. All I can say is there are definitely many, many high-profile names that have not yet come out.
“Men who, through their sense of arrogance and entitlement, have hurt women and have not yet been made accountable. We’re here to win justice and accountability but how that happens, that’s going to be up to our clients working with us.”
Allred has taken on the Catholic Church over sexual abuse by priests, the Boy Scouts of America for excluding a girl, and those who opposed same-sex marriage. In 1995 she became a household name when she represented the family of Nicole Brown Simpson during OJ Simpson’s highly-publicized murder trial.
She spoke to the Guardian in the run-up to the launch on Netflix on 9 February of Seeing Allred, a documentary about her life and work.
The film charts her career from the founding of Allred, Maroko & Goldberg, the firm she set up with two classmates in Los Angeles in 1976 specializing in discrimination, sexual misconduct and employment cases.
She is seen growing into a larger than life figure as she stands up for feminism on TV talkshows in the 1970s and 1980s and attends protest marches, press conferences and court cases.
The documentary also covers the shocking events of her early 20s, detailed in her 2006 autobiography, Fight Back and Win. While on vacation in Mexico, she was raped at gunpoint by a doctor, became pregnant and nearly died from a then illegal abortion. She remembers the nurse telling her: “This will teach you a lesson.” She didn’t report the rape because she thought she would not be believed.
For more reads the full of article at The Guardian
