Today it is five years since the American actress Alyssa Milano posted the Twitter message that was supposed to go down like a bomb: Photo: Screenshot from Twitter The tweet was a reaction to the abuse allegations against the powerful film producer Harvey Weinstein. Social media exploded. Within a day, half a million messages were received. Five years later, there is little doubt that Metoo has made visible how widespread sexual harassment and abuse against women is. Now we boast that we believe women who tell about abuse, mistreatment and harassment. But the grim truth is that most people are still unaware of how easy it is to portray a woman as a liar. Abuse culture didn’t die because we shared a hashtag on Twitter. Feel free to call yourself a feminist, boycott Woody Allen and rejoice that Harvey Weinstein is in prison. But for many, there is still a long way to go before they actually believe in women, even if they say they do, because that is what is politically correct. Few believe in women the moment they are not portrayed as the “perfect victim”. The perfect victim has never done anything wrong before the abuse, which can be used against her afterwards. She does not challenge men. She is a kind girl who does not make a fuss. She dresses smartly, drinks moderately and doesn’t go home from a party late at night with a smile and the breeze. If you are not a perfect victim, you can simply forget to tell about abuse and harassment. Anything you’ve done that doesn’t fit into this gold standard for women will be used against you – to prove that you can’t be trusted. That you are most likely lying. Now think about how the response will be if you are raped, but are nowhere near being the ‘perfect victim’. Let’s say the victim doesn’t have a perfect record, dresses outrageously, or has previously been caught with a joint. Maybe someone has heard some rumors about her too. Perhaps she is not a people pleaser; not so easy to like. Nor does she have resourceful parents who can provide the city’s best lawyer. How big a chance do you have of being believed then? How much has metoo helped you? Not very much. And one thing is absolutely clear: The perfect victim does not exist in reality. There is always something they can use against you. As the revelation news’s Inger Merete Hobbelstad points out in her commentary on Weinstein: The film mogul’s celebrity lawyer Lisa Bloom had several concrete suggestions for how he could escape by leaking negative stories about the women who accused him of abuse. They could make them appear unstable and ensure that they were discredited every time someone googled them. Lisa Bloom, the former lawyer of Harvey Weinstein, who, according to the New York Times, suggested that he could leak negative stories about the women who made accusations against him. Photo: Matt Slocum / AP It is perhaps not so strange that women all too often choose not to speak up – even after metoo? When a friend of mine was sexually assaulted at a party and told her friends, there were more people who took the abuser’s side, because they thought it was ‘petty’ of her to ruin his reputation. All warning lights should be on when a man’s reputation is valued over a woman’s safety. But people don’t really want to believe women who whine about abuse. Another friend was raped by a 24-year-old man when she was in high school. The others thought she had drunk a bit too much that night. And he was “a decent fellow”. They chose to believe in him instead of her. When she was raped again a year later, she was accused of being attention-seeking. They thought she was “crying wolf”. These abuses happened after metoo, but none of the girls went ahead with the cases because they didn’t expect to be believed. They would only get a lot of discomfort and new humiliations. If you cry, they’re going to say your tears are fake. If you’re not crying, you’re fine, so what are you complaining about? If you tried to defend yourself, you were asking for trouble. If you didn’t defend yourself, because you were afraid that he would become even more violent, it will be used against you. If you had been drinking, you behaved irresponsibly and must take the blame yourself. If he had been drinking, it is often downplayed among his friends. If you dress sexy, do you expect men to be tempted? The male harasser is excused with every defense in the book. Slut Walk (“slut march”) in Munich in July. One of many demonstrations against sexual abuse and victimization after metoo. The protest started after the police asked women not to dress provocatively to avoid rape. Photo: Alexander Pohl / Zuma Press Girls are also often accused of lying about abuse to gain sympathy. If you are among those who dismiss abuse in that way, then it is a lie that you believe in women. There are enough people out there who don’t like it when women speak out clearly about oppression. It does not match our expectations of the passive woman. Women are expected to live morally blameless lives, and preferably not make too much of a fuss. But today’s women actually expect to be able to live their lives exactly as they want – without being used for unwanted entertainment by men. We expect that abuse will not be accepted, nor when the woman has her faults and shortcomings. The abuser doesn’t always look like the big, bad wolf, and the victim doesn’t always look like a wounded lamb. The victim can certainly be rude or arrogant, or even retaliate. It doesn’t make the abuser any less of an abuser, and it doesn’t make the victim any less of a victim. The Metoo movement was absolutely necessary. But it is naive to believe that it has led to drastic improvements. Some heads have fallen, and both companies, organizations and parties are queuing up to show off publicly that “here we have zero tolerance”. But that has hardly made it easier for women to be believed. The suspicion of those who speak out is alive and well. Abuse is still downplayed. Want more to come out of metoo? It’s amazingly simple. You just have to give people ownership over their own bodies. Can you manage that much? Also read:
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