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penpusherYesterday, there was this video clip:
The father of three victims of that Olympic Doctor who molested all those athletes reacted to him.
A friend asked about why this kind of anger and response wasn't there at the very start, and it took all of these people coming forward to share their harrowing tales of abuse to finally bring about this reaction. After giving it a bit of thought, here's what I came up with...
Expectations.
I think, as a starting point, we have certain expectations about what our lives are all about, how things function, and who the people we encounter are. We also have an expectation that the people in our lives, most especially professionals, always behave in an ethical manner. After all, they have worked to get to the place where they are. They wouldn't jeopardize that position by doing something that might take everything they had done, away.
So, when we begin looking at a circumstance like the one where we have a doctor sexually molesting how many? Over one-hundred and fifty (and counting) young athletes, women and girls, the first thought is that this doctor isn't going to do that. That goes against logic and reason.
Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Roy Moore and this guy, among a bunch of men that were admired for so very long are the people of that sort in question. And, at first glance, our society just couldn't quite believe that these guys would do anything like that. Their personalities away from these accusations fell within the spectrum of normal, even friendly and affable. And they were at the top of their fields.
This way of thinking, this expectation of "how things work" comes into play in a lot of ways in our society. It allows us to believe that the police are always correct in whatever action they take during any routine traffic stop. It permits us to say that a political leader would never place his personal interests ahead of the nation he has sworn to protect. And it definitely affects our view of these people, like all of the Catholic Priests who were accused of molesting altar boys, who were then reassigned to other parishes in other states to avoid the scandal.
When you view these guys, when you consider their position, and assume they must have behaved ethically to get as far as they did, that's where the veil is pulled across our eyes. Surely THEY aren't going to behave that way. So, the issue must be with the accuser. The accusers are not powerful people with clout in the community. They aren't people who have lived as long and may not understand just what they are suggesting with their statements, or they might misread signals they received from their encounter with this person. So, either the accuser simply made a mistake, or it wasn't as bad as described, or it was a false accusation as a prank, or a false accusation to be malicious. Because, if it's none of those things?
We want our world to make sense.
We want our world to make sense.
But, if someone we know and like, a family friend, a trusted confidant, a professional that is noted for their exemplary work... does... this?
It doesn't make sense.
And that's how blaming the victim becomes a thing. We just want the world to make sense and we will do whatever it takes to make that happen.
Eventually, however, the ostriches must lift their heads from the sand, and usually that means looking at a world that is far worse than if they had dealt with the situation when it was first noticed.
I hope we can continue to move forward, that there can be some true healing for everyone harmed because of these events, that the perpetrators can feel some empathy for their victims and can understand the affect they have had by their selfish and unwanted actions. I hope there can be forgiveness, because holding anger, pain and rage only harms the person who feels that even more. And I hope there can be a sense of closure for everyone affected.
But most of all, I'm hoping that we won't make the assumption that just because someone has reached a certain stature in life, doesn't mean they could not or would not be the perpetrator of a heinous act.
Our ostrich days are over.
ETA: Uma Thurman's story about Weinstein, which appears in the Feburary 4, 2018 issue of The New York Times also echoes the point I made here; Ms. Thurman states the following:
“The complicated feeling I have about Harvey is how bad I feel about all the women that were attacked after I was,” she told me one recent night, looking anguished in her elegant apartment in River House on Manhattan’s East Side, as she vaped tobacco, sipped white wine and fed empty pizza boxes into the fireplace.
“I am one of the reasons that a young girl would walk into his room alone, the way I did. Quentin used Harvey as the executive producer of ‘Kill Bill,’ a movie that symbolizes female empowerment. And all these lambs walked into slaughter because they were convinced nobody rises to such a position who would do something illegal to you, but they do.”
Thurman stresses that Creative Artists Agency, her former agency, was connected to Weinstein’s predatory behavior. It has since issued a public apology. “I stand as both a person who was subjected to it and a person who was then also part of the cloud cover, so that’s a super weird split to have,” she says.
Maureen Dowd's interview with Uma Thurman is up on The Times Website
The father of three victims of that Olympic Doctor who molested all those athletes reacted to him.
A friend asked about why this kind of anger and response wasn't there at the very start, and it took all of these people coming forward to share their harrowing tales of abuse to finally bring about this reaction. After giving it a bit of thought, here's what I came up with...
Expectations.
I think, as a starting point, we have certain expectations about what our lives are all about, how things function, and who the people we encounter are. We also have an expectation that the people in our lives, most especially professionals, always behave in an ethical manner. After all, they have worked to get to the place where they are. They wouldn't jeopardize that position by doing something that might take everything they had done, away.
So, when we begin looking at a circumstance like the one where we have a doctor sexually molesting how many? Over one-hundred and fifty (and counting) young athletes, women and girls, the first thought is that this doctor isn't going to do that. That goes against logic and reason.
Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Roy Moore and this guy, among a bunch of men that were admired for so very long are the people of that sort in question. And, at first glance, our society just couldn't quite believe that these guys would do anything like that. Their personalities away from these accusations fell within the spectrum of normal, even friendly and affable. And they were at the top of their fields.
This way of thinking, this expectation of "how things work" comes into play in a lot of ways in our society. It allows us to believe that the police are always correct in whatever action they take during any routine traffic stop. It permits us to say that a political leader would never place his personal interests ahead of the nation he has sworn to protect. And it definitely affects our view of these people, like all of the Catholic Priests who were accused of molesting altar boys, who were then reassigned to other parishes in other states to avoid the scandal.
When you view these guys, when you consider their position, and assume they must have behaved ethically to get as far as they did, that's where the veil is pulled across our eyes. Surely THEY aren't going to behave that way. So, the issue must be with the accuser. The accusers are not powerful people with clout in the community. They aren't people who have lived as long and may not understand just what they are suggesting with their statements, or they might misread signals they received from their encounter with this person. So, either the accuser simply made a mistake, or it wasn't as bad as described, or it was a false accusation as a prank, or a false accusation to be malicious. Because, if it's none of those things?
We want our world to make sense.
We want our world to make sense.
But, if someone we know and like, a family friend, a trusted confidant, a professional that is noted for their exemplary work... does... this?
It doesn't make sense.
And that's how blaming the victim becomes a thing. We just want the world to make sense and we will do whatever it takes to make that happen.
Eventually, however, the ostriches must lift their heads from the sand, and usually that means looking at a world that is far worse than if they had dealt with the situation when it was first noticed.
I hope we can continue to move forward, that there can be some true healing for everyone harmed because of these events, that the perpetrators can feel some empathy for their victims and can understand the affect they have had by their selfish and unwanted actions. I hope there can be forgiveness, because holding anger, pain and rage only harms the person who feels that even more. And I hope there can be a sense of closure for everyone affected.
But most of all, I'm hoping that we won't make the assumption that just because someone has reached a certain stature in life, doesn't mean they could not or would not be the perpetrator of a heinous act.
Our ostrich days are over.
ETA: Uma Thurman's story about Weinstein, which appears in the Feburary 4, 2018 issue of The New York Times also echoes the point I made here; Ms. Thurman states the following:
“The complicated feeling I have about Harvey is how bad I feel about all the women that were attacked after I was,” she told me one recent night, looking anguished in her elegant apartment in River House on Manhattan’s East Side, as she vaped tobacco, sipped white wine and fed empty pizza boxes into the fireplace.
“I am one of the reasons that a young girl would walk into his room alone, the way I did. Quentin used Harvey as the executive producer of ‘Kill Bill,’ a movie that symbolizes female empowerment. And all these lambs walked into slaughter because they were convinced nobody rises to such a position who would do something illegal to you, but they do.”
Thurman stresses that Creative Artists Agency, her former agency, was connected to Weinstein’s predatory behavior. It has since issued a public apology. “I stand as both a person who was subjected to it and a person who was then also part of the cloud cover, so that’s a super weird split to have,” she says.
Maureen Dowd's interview with Uma Thurman is up on The Times Website
no subject
Date: 2018-02-04 12:14 am (UTC)This is exactly why I always say that domestic violence is EVERYONE's business. The less people talk about this type of thing, the harder it is to be believed when it happens to you AS WELL AS giving the abusers the impression that what they are doing "isn't that bad".
Also, the mindset that women do not have an equally weighted voice as witnesses. No woman in our society has reached adulthood without experiencing some sort of abuse or harassment. This sounds like hyperbole, but it isn't. If we haven't gotten it from some man in our lives, we have gotten it from women in our lives; this is the way our societal norms are set up. And its fucked up.
I can see how this would be a mindset. This is not a mindset I have ever been afforded, personally. It is not a privilege I have had.
I am glad that the #me too movement IS such a big thing right now. It is about damned time these people were brought to task for their bad behaviors. It is about damned time that tolerance for such behaviors ended.
But most importantly, it is about damned time that victims stopped having to bear the burden of accusations and reprisals for speaking out.
The best part about the father trying to attack the doctor, in my book, was the judge saying that she would not charge him with anything more than contempt of court.
no subject
Date: 2018-02-04 03:36 am (UTC)And you're absolutely right, all women have faced abuse just as surely as all minorities have faced racism and all gay people have faced homophobia. These are all tines on the same fork.
The judge knew and understood the father's anguish and despair. We are all human in this equation.
no subject
Date: 2018-02-04 03:53 am (UTC)