Federal judges have lifetime tenure under Article III of the Constitution. So removing a judge requires impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate after a trial. It’s no surprise that Congress has meted out this punishment only eight times in our country’s history, and never for sexual misconduct. For this reason, the only realistic way to hold judges to account for the kind of allegations that have torpedoed the careers of power brokers in other professions in the post-Weinstein era is through an internal process that allows judges to punish their colleagues with lesser sanctions like suspension, public rebuke or a recommendation that the offender step aside.

2017 is proving to be a watershed moment for women in the workplace and beyond. Instead of being bullied into retreat or pressured into weary resignation, we are raising our voices—and raising them louder than ever before. What’s more, the world is finally listening.

“The stakes are higher in a lot of instances for us than they are for a lot of other women,” said Tarana Burke, a Black activist who founded the #MeToo movement on Twitter in 2006 to raise awareness around sexual violence. “That creates a dynamic where you have women of colour who have to think a little bit differently about what it means for them to come forward in cases of sexual harassment.”

The Equality Act currently covers sexual harassment in the workplace - but outside work, prosecutors must use different pieces of legislation, depending on the nature of the offence. Critics say this leaves us without a proper definition of the types of behaviour that amount to sexual harassment - or clear boundaries. It also makes it near impossible to get an accurate picture of the scale of the problem.

While he is not the first to say that—Mitt Romney, for example, tweeted, “I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore”—many Republicans have taken a cautious approach to the accusations against Moore, saying that on the one hand they think he should step aside if the claims are true, but at the same time withholding judgment on that question.

Feminists saved the 42nd president of the United States in the 1990s. They were on the wrong side of history; is it finally time to make things right?

"...in India survivors of a sexual assault are often either blamed or pitied as somehow irreparably soiled. So the actress's defiance was a watershed moment. "She changed the whole narrative with that single act of bravery." She also inspired her female colleagues to start a conversation they'd never had before. At first they were simply phoning each other out of shock — and to discuss ways they could lend the actress their public support."

"There was a risk of them fondling your bottom, a risk of trouble," she said on France 2 television. In comments to the news magazine L'Express she said "there was a blacklist of guys with whom you couldn't take risks". She said it was not a written list, but "informal advice exchanged in the canteen, in coffee breaks, in the evening".

The Radio 5 live survey, of 2,031 British adults, found that 37% of all those asked - 53% of women and 20% of men - said they had experienced sexual harassment, ranging from inappropriate comments to actual sexual assaults, at work or a place of study. More than a quarter of people surveyed had suffered harassment in the form of inappropriate jokes or "banter" and nearly one in seven had suffered inappropriate touching. Of those who had been harassed, 5 live's survey suggests one in 10 women had been sexually assaulted.

"This is not unique to Fox News. Women everywhere are used to being dismissed, ignored or attacked when raising complaints about men in authority positions," Kelly said. "They stay silent so often out of fear — fear of ending their careers, fear of lawyers, yes, and often fear of public shaming." Kelly said it gives her "no pleasure" to make these claims against her former employer, "but this must stop."

The Oxford English Dictionary defines sexual harassment as "unwanted sexual advances, obscene remarks, etc". And the Equality Act 2010 says it's an "unwanted conduct of a sexual nature" which violates a person's dignity or "creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading or offensive environment".

The idea of sexual harassment itself might have been codified in law relatively recently, but the phenomenon has been around for a very long time. Ancient Rome had explicit laws against it: You weren't allowed to "accost, abduct or stalk" anybody, particularly women, if it was "contrary to good morals" (though, of course, this only was the case for upper class women). But explicit protections against sexual harassment, particularly for women at work, have historically been meager at best, or insulting at worst.