This article was republished from Unwritten with the author’s permission.
Neil Gaiman. P Diddy. Justin Baldoni. Johnny Depp. Donald Trump.
What do all these men have in common? Multiple women have opened up about these men sexually assaulting them. And that’s not even covering everyone we’ve heard since before and after the Me Too movement took out, as well as its subsequent backlash.
Yet many—if not all—of the men listed are still in the public sphere. The public even sympathizes with them.
The New York Times reported the smear campaign Justin Baldoni ran against Blake Lively with snippets of text messages. But Baldoni, like Johnny Depp and the men before him, has his defenders, and his PR team is pushing the narrative that she’s a mean girl who tried to take over the It Ends With Us filming—ironic backlash for a man who calls himself a feminist. You would think he wouldn’t paint the same misogynistic image he claims to be against, yet here we are. With all the sympathy that initially came out to Baldoni, I had to admit I was skeptical.
We’ve seen this happen before, after all. And ironically, Baldoni used some of the same PR people that Depp did during his legal battle against Amber Heard. Despite Heard’s op-ed not mentioning Depp by name, and even though the UK court ruled in her favor when Depp accused her of defamation, the public still turned against her when they went to court again in the US. The internet gleefully humiliated, shamed, and mocked Heard, showing how successfully Depp used a common technique that domestic abusers use to vilify their victims, known as Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender (DARVO).
And Trump—well, I think we’ve talked about him more than enough, and that man loves being the center of attention. But I can’t deny that he’s just further proof that powerful men can get away with sexual assault, even bragging about it in public. The fact that people still voted for him to be president of the united states not once, but twice, shows that rape culture is very much real and still alive. And that’s not even counting the other atrocities the man has committed.
Meanwhile, you have women who come against these men vilified. We don’t allow women to be human, yet we defend and worship men who get away with sexual assault. You can’t deny the double standard.
This further proves that the Me Too movement is continuing to face backlash from perpetrators. The arguments that Me Too would leave to false accusations don’t hold weight; research has shown that only 8% percent of all rape allegations are deemed false. Additionally, survivors only report about 5% of all sexual assault cases, making it an underreported crime.
Sadly, it’s easy to see why so many survivors don’t report abuse: No one believes women.
Many women don’t go to the police because the police don’t always believe them. When they come out in public, the public doesn’t always believe them. Not even people in their inner circle always believe them, the people you’re supposed to trust and who are supposed to support you as much as you support them. It’s a sad reality, but it’s true—and it hasn’t changed.
And if people don’t believe women, why would they believe people can assault men, too? No man is going to come forward after seeing the way women are vilified. When you let abusers get away with assault, it hurts everyone.
This has to stop.
It doesn’t matter how influential a person is. I don’t care if they contributed greatly to films or books or whatever else. If you rape someone, if you sexually assault someone in any shape or form, that is not okay. We can’t and shouldn’t make any excuses for them.
Most importantly, we have to do better to support survivors.
They are the ones who deserve our support, not the abusers. I only hope that, as others speak out, as I and others voice our support, we will see survivors getting the compassion, support, and care they deserve. It’s long overdue.
If you need help, call 800-656-4673. You can also find more resources at https://www.nsvrc.org/find-help
Photo by alexey turenkov on Unsplash
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