‘#MeToo, Now What?’ tackles tough conversations

Nadine Strossen, Ijeoma Oluo, Amanda Rye and Zainab Salbi talking on the set of “#MeToo, Now What?”

A new five-part series about the rise of the #MeToo movement and wave of accusations against sexual assaulters following The New York Times report on Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual misconduct airs Fridays at 7:30 p.m. on Arizona PBS.

“#MeToo, Now What?” takes a deeper look at the national conversation currently surrounding sexual harassment. The series, hosted by Women for Women International founder Zainab Salbi, engages both women and men, spanning across all generations and walks of life. Salbi guides the conversation through difficult issues as the series seeks to answer the question: How did we get here and how can we use this moment to effect positive and lasting change?

Each episode in the series tackles a specific aspect of sexual harassment, including the impact popular culture has on women in the workplace, race and class, the wage gap and gender discrimination, how men can be be a positive part of the #MeToo movement and how to handle sexual harassment in the future.

Salbi will take the viewers out of the studio and into the field, where she meets with guests and gets to the heart of the issues through thoughtful, candid conversations. Conversations throughout the series will build upon one another, providing layers of context and information to help the viewers better understand these pressing issues.

“#MeToo, Now What?” will draw from a range of guests, including women and men of all ages, races and economic groups — and ordinary citizens from across the nation. Salbi will also welcome activists, journalists, celebrities and leaders from the worlds of media, academics, business, arts, entertainment, fashion and advertising.

“In order for this conversation to create true cultural change, we must talk with the man on the street, in our lives, our colleagues and friends,” said Salbi. “Equally, we need to have the conversation with the women in our lives to examine why, when we’ve seen sexual misconduct, we’ve often looked the other way when it didn’t impact us directly.”

About Zainab Salbi

People Magazine named Salbi one of the “25 Women Changing the World” in 2016, Foreign Policy named her as one of the “100 Leading Global Thinkers,” Fast Company identified her as one of 100 “Most Creative People in Business,” and Arabian Business named her “#1 Most Influential Arab Woman in the World.”

At the age of 23, Salbi founded Women for Women International, a grassroots humanitarian and development organization dedicated to serving women survivors of wars by offering support, tools and access to life-changing skills to move from crisis and poverty to stability and economic self-sufficiency. Under her leadership as CEO (1993-2011), the organization grew from helping 30 women to more than 400,000 women in eight conflict areas. It also distributed more than $100 million in direct aid and micro credit loans that involved more than 1.7 million family members.

In October 2015, Salbi launched “The Nida’a Show,” a groundbreaking talk show dedicated to addressing and inspiring women in the Arab world. The show started with the historic first interview in the Arab world with Oprah Winfrey (Winfrey had featured Salbi 10 times on her own show) and featured women and men from all walks of life in addition to global and Arab celebrities. In November 2016, Salbi launched “The Zainab Salbi Project,” an original global series in collaboration with Huffington Post and AOL, in which she travels the world shedding light on global issues through the incredible personal stories of people who are struggling, surviving and thriving in a sea of conflict.

Salbi is the author of several books including the best-seller “Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam.” She is currently the editor at large at Women in the World.

Funding is provided PBS.

Produced by Women in the World Media, LLC for PBS.
Co-produced by Public Square Media, Inc.

Executive editor and host: Zainab Salbi
Executive producer: Gina Kim
Co-executive producer: Suzanne Hayward
Creative director: Ahmer Kalam
Executive in charge: Robert Clauser
Production executives: Judy Doctoroff and Sally Roy