Worse than we'd like

I also recently finished Nobody's Girl by Virginia Giuffre.

In April I had also read The Lasting Harm by Lucia Osborne Crowley. They join a long list of books I have read about rape culture and harassment.

One thing that I hadn't really thought of before reading Nobody's Girl was the impact of #MeToo.

The lawsuits had been going on, along with the discovery and a shameful plea agreement years before. They picked up traction because of #MeToo and the prosecution of Harvey Weinstein.

That's wrong and unfortunate, but it wouldn't seem as horrible if we had really made progress in this area. 

As it is, there is still the tendency to dismiss and downgrade and call things unsubstantiated even when the substantiation is right there. 

There are still people who only want to hear about the Epstein Files if they relate to Democrats. 

Platner supporters wouldn't listen to Lyndsay Fifield because she was a Republican; with even worse allegations from a Democrat, finally most people are willing to let him go. 

(At least one person is still assuming she remembered it wrong, some are saying she is lying, and of course none of it should have mattered in the first place because the Nazi tattoo should have been disqualifying right away, but that's for a different post. We'll get there.)

There is a long litany of only lightly-punished convictions for men raping and murdering women. 

Do I say that supporting the carceral state? That's also a longer discussion, but since we do have a carceral state, then looking at what is punished and who is punished is telling. It remains really hard to find that a woman's bodily autonomy and welfare can be held equal to a man's, and be more important than his right to abuse her.

It is really disappointing that protecting children only gets used as a motive to attack drag queens and vaccines.

Whenever the discussion comes up, in addition to replies that the girls knew what they were doing or got paid, you will find people asserting that once someone is menstruating that she is a woman and at the peak age, so it's all good.

No, not all men, but too many.

And it's sickening. 

This is happening in the same era where I keep seeing more serious discussion about how universal suffrage was a mistake.

As easy as it would be to think that is just talk, there were people who kept asserting that Roe v. Wade was settled law right up until the Supreme Court was adequately stocked by Trump. Then there was a case already to go.

Convenient.

Except it's not convenience, it's planning.

There are scheming, evil people who know what they are doing to shred every tool to help there be equity and inclusion among diversity.

I don't like that, but it wouldn't matter so much if there were not so many people who say they are against that level, but will still say that she was almost an adult, or discount coercion, or find "woke" to be a bad thing without stopping to think what it means or why there are people who don't like it.

We all need to be more actively engaged, and with more care for each other.