While I was bothered by
Mayim Bialik's original opinion piece and her wrong-headed follow-up, I started
that post "Among the various wrong responses..." and I meant that.
The guy who tried to horn
in on one woman's "Me too" post with his own trauma and make it about
himself, then when she objected took it as all women being terrible and not
deserving any sympathy -- that is not a good response.
People raising concerns
about witch hunts, with a barely disguised sheen of self-interest and complete
ignorance of the historical significance of real witch hunts, because gender
and power were factors there too -- they are not leading us to a better path.
The psychiatrist saying
that Weinstein took his one-week outpatient treatment seriously, as well as all
of the people blaming the abuse on sex addiction, are not being particularly
helpful. (FYI, generally when you find correlation between sexual assault and
sex addiction, that is more likely to be victims of sexual abuse becoming
addicts, but still not attacking others.)
Still, the other one that
really made me mad, and that I need to write about now, relates to the people
saying that the women who didn't speak up are just as guilty as Weinstein. I
think I saw one person say more guilty, but my focus had been on hoping I had
read that wrong. I hadn't. That kept me from focusing on other details.
This sort of thinking has
flaws in both comprehension and character. It also has a certain logic: there
is such a long tradition of blaming women for their sexual assaults - What were
you wearing? Aren't you sexually active (a slut) anyway? - that it may have
become difficult for some people to think anyone else could be to blame.
If the women who didn't
tell about the early assaults are responsible for the later assaults, but then
the ones assaulted later didn't tell, the maybe only the most recently
assaulted doesn't have any culpability, or maybe the first one assaulted wasn't
responsible for her rape, but she's responsible for everyone else's, but surely
there has to be some reason that it was their fault! They're women!
Sure, it doesn't sound
right when you write it out like that, but a lot of horrible though rests on
not thinking too clearly or looking too close.
There is a lot to unpack
about power, and how we favor those in power. We'll get to that eventually, but
today I want to focus on the flaw in comprehension. Those women blamed for not
speaking out, did.
Believe it or not, I
haven't been following the case that closely. I have only read a few articles.
Maybe I am better at taking in and remembering details than some readers, but
from those few articles it would appear that among others, Mira Sorvino told
Quentin Tarantino, Gwyneth Paltrow told Brad Pitt, and Rose McGowan told Ben
Affleck, who responded that he'd told Weinstein to stop doing that, raising the
strong possibility that at least one other person told him.
Ambra Battilana (yes, I
had to look up her name, but I remembered there was someone) told the police
and helped them with a sting. Maybe she needed better coaching in effectively
getting someone to incriminate themselves, but she told.
Many stories are being
told now about unnamed producers (though you have to wonder now how many are
about James Toback). These women told in two ways. They told people that they
thought could help, and had it minimized or justified or lost careers because
of it (or all of the above). They also told each other, because there are so
many stories of being warned off. It's the missing stair system -- we can't
take away the danger, but let's try and protect each other. Except, we could
take away the danger if the right people wanted to.
One of the big indicators
that many women told is the number of Non-Disclosure Agreements out there. You
could look at that as women agreeing not to tell, but if they are trying to
tell and not getting anywhere - because they are not the ones with the power -
that's something else.
However, how many people
knew about the NDAs? There should be at least two lawyers for each one, I
imagine. If there is a payout, and that money is coming from the studio, then
how many board members knew?
Here's the thing: I had
started hearing things about Bill Cosby at least three years before it really
broke. It started changing how I felt about him personally, but I still had
some doubts because if it were real it seemed like it should be a bigger deal.
This was naive of me. People were speaking up, but they weren't being listened
to. They were being called liars and told that they were too ugly to be raped
(because rape is nothing if not a compliment on your beauty), and people really
didn't want to deal with it until it became too awkward to ignore.
Please note, that turning
point was largely due to Hannibal Buress, a man. I don't want to downplay his
role, because apparently he was listening to women, and he did care before it
was big, but other people could have listened earlier. Louis CK's career is
going great; is that only because only women are talking about what he does?
Let's think about the
abuser side for a minute. Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly and Bill Cosby remain
rich. Trump was elected president. That thing where they say that being accused
of rape is the worst thing that can happen to a man (as opposed to rape)?
Patently false.
Coming forward and
speaking about being attacked, on the other hand, is horrible. You have to
relive the trauma, be judged for it and blamed for it, and often you find that
nothing happens. I was reading a thread about workplace sexual harassment, and
the best outcome was that one harasser was transferred to a new office, where
he would probably find new victims. Most of the women eventually left their jobs.
Despite this, women speak
out all the time. There can be a lot of blame to go around, but silence on the
part of the victims is not the problem.
And to believe that it is
requires a pretty terrible person. Like, maybe not actively terrible, but you
accept evil to stay comfortable. That has to be soul-killing. I'm just saying
that it's worth thinking about.
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