Letting them speak

Very little felt right in writing about Lori Mattix yesterday. Even calling her a groupie - because it should be an adult decision to become a groupie - felt wrong. The more basic conflict is that she feels better about her life experience than I do about it. If it is disrespectful to tell an adult they are viewing their past wrong, I still can't bring myself to not call it wrong.

I also know that I had a highly inflated opinion of my own maturity and decision-making abilities at fourteen. Retroactively I am still pretty sure that I was more mature than many fourteen-year old girls (and boys), but there is still a lot to be said for actually going through the years with the experience that entails, along with the completion of brain development.

The other thing I know is that young women are socialized to put a high value on male attention. That not only leads to a lot of angst and humiliation, but it frequently facilitates the acceptance of horrible behavior. (He only kidnapped you because he likes you.)

Because of all of that, when I wrote about needing to create a world that is supportive of and values women, and that listens to them, it's not just so that we can help women heal, and nip things in the bud before healing is required, but also that we can shift how we understand what is positive attention and what is negative. That's not just about building a better present and future, but also helping people to face old wounds and heal from them. The good works together.

Listening is important for changing situations, but it may also be one of the surest signs that we value someone. 

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina received a lot of attention for her sentencing of Larry Nassar. You can argue that she was overly theatrical with the letter. You can definitely take exception to any indications that being raped in prison is an appropriate punishment. I can certainly see why this would feel right in this case, but if we look at who ends up in prison and why, and the things that happen to them because of that, we should simply not get in the habit of finding any rape or any mistreatment of prisoners funny. Also, that leads into another area, of whether we should call this ruling transformative justice, to which the answer is no. Someone did use the term in relation to the case, but that conveys a lack of understanding of the topic.

With all of that said, I wholeheartedly applaud Judge Aquilina allowing all of the girls who wished to read their impact statements. Yes, that took a lot of time, and it included people who were not formally named in the case, but it was valuable for them. Her recognition of them, and encouragement of them, that I think she really got right.

Of course there were complaints about that too. There would be, but this is exactly what is needed.

That is the most flummoxing thing -- for all of the "concerns" about people seeking money and fame, what most of the victims seem to want most is to be heard, and people are reluctant to even give them that.

I can think of things that might be good. It might be great for Salma Hayek to get to release a special cut of Frida, one that met her vision without the need of an added sex scene because Weinstein told her that without her hotness she was nothing. It could be great for studios to fund projects for some of the women whose careers have been trashed. Maybe. If those are things that they want. But they should get to say what they want first, and get to say what they need.

And that should be happening in a lot of industries besides Hollywood.