It is being praised by many as being an incredible break-through, something whose time has finally come; and it bestows on those who are speaking out the status of brave heros – or heroines – for opening the floodgates.
And those who have serious reservations aren’t saying much of anything. Why not?
They know all too well the fate that awaits them if they do, the sneers, the looks, the accusations, the hateful comments. Rape apologist. Aiding and abetting the enemy. Victim-blamer.
And there’s something else. Deep in the heart of everyone who is thinking, “Wait a minute; slow down; this has the potential to destroy so many innocent,” there is the knowledge that some of it is true. People in power have, without doubt, used that power to extract sexual favors from those with less power. It is an abhorrent and vile truth.
But does that justify jumping on every bandwagon that leaves the starting gate and assuming the worst about every person, celebrity or not, about whom an accusation is made?
Accusations of this sort are the most insidious of all. Accuse an innocent man of stealing company funds, and when the true culprit is caught, he is exonerated; his reputation and life are not destroyed. Someone made a mistake in accusing him, and that mistake was righted.
Accuse an innocent man of making improper sexual advances, of molestation, of rape, and there is no exoneration. He is judged guilty even if the charges are never proved, even if there is never a conviction. He just got away with it. Those in power cover up for their friends. He's got money; he bought his way out. Where there is smoke, there is fire. When two or five or ten women accuse the same man, it has to be true.
Does it?
There is something about this that reminds me of the psychology of mob mentality.
Men who are celebrities are, by definition, high profile targets. Saying something happened fifteen or thirty or forty years ago is such as easy thing to do. If someone else has already said it, it is even easier. It spreads like wildfire.
So what should we do? Should we just close our eyes and allow real abuse to continue? No. But should we slow down and have a conversation about how easy it would be, how easy it is, to destroy someone who is innocent? Should we recognize that this is a bandwagon that people are being encouraged to jump on? Should we at least talk about the part that is played by the emergence of the “social justice warrior” movement and the new feminism, a feminism that appears to seek not fairness and equality but domination and even revenge?
Should we recognize that, with this issue, a highly cherished constitutional protection is disappearing right before our eyes? The burden of proof has always been on the accuser, on the state. That is shifting and morphing more every day, with every accusation. Each person accused feels the burden to prove he did not do such a thing. That has terrifying implications, not only for those accused of crimes of a sexual nature but for those accused of any crime.
And in attempting to prove innocence, is anyone talking about the sheer impossibility of proving a negative, especially one alleged to have occurred decades ago? Or for those not so innocent, the impossibility of mounting a legal defense when the accusations are from another lifetime ago?
No one is having these conversations, but should we?
We must. Otherwise, who is safe? Not your father, not your husband, not your son, not your friend.
Not you.
Hi Shelly, glad you're back.
ReplyDeleteI find I have mixed feelings about this post. I worry as you do about the erosion of due process. But a court of law is not the court of public opinion, and in moral panics the court of public opinion is always quick to judgement. (And as moral panics go, this one's a doozy, isn't it?)
At the same time, given what we know about psychology and the under-reporting of sexual violence, there's a very high likelihood that many (if not most) of the allegations are true. Or, at least, true from the perspective of the persons reporting them. In hindsight, the Trump comments caught on the Access Hollywood tapes last year should have been a wake-up call because of how much they actually represent the attitudes of many powerful people.
To complicate things even more, there seems to be a difference in how some people perceive words and behaviors that is gender-based. I read an article the other day where a firm that does sexual harassment training found that behaviors many men perceived as relatively innocent (green to yellow on a color scale) were perceived by women as orange or even red (blatant harassment).
So yes, I think we need to talk about this. But we also need to recognize that these problems stem directly from how we treat sexual violence. The reasons for under-reporting? We've made the stakes so high that workers don't want to risk their careers, children fear breaking up their families, friends are afraid to ruin someone they see as basically a "nice person."
It's time to decide, once and for all, if we really want to heal victims and rehabilitate offenders, or just perpetuate the cycle of suffering.
And that, your last sentence, is the conversation that we as a nation must have. Thank you for such an insightful and well-written comment.
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