This is hidden brain.
Im Shankar Vedantam.
A warning before we start todays show.
This episode includes accounts of sexual assault and may not be suitable for all listeners.
In 2016, Maya Hermanson sat down at her laptop to write a Facebook post.
It was about a famous playwright, Israel Horovitz.
She accused him of serious sexual misconduct.
He put this anger in me that I didnt have before, and that wasnt going away.
I couldn't let it rest.
Within months, other women stepped forward with similar stories.
But, yeah, no, he just locked the door, and then nobody was there.
And it was, and then he just.
I never thought it would go this far.
I went to the managing director and said I was quitting.
The theater world was quick to censure the playwright.
Several companies dropped productions of his plays.
He quickly resigned from the board of the theater company that he'd founded.
Israel Horovitz was disgraced, his career in tatters.
But heres the twist.
24 years earlier, another group of women had made nearly identical accusations, and nothing happened.