Jessica Valenti says that she has come to the conclusion
that when we make excuses for particular, powerful men who hurt women, we make the world more comfortable for all abusers. And that this cultural cognitive dissonance around sexual assault and abuse is building a safety net for perpetrators that we should all be ashamed of.
She wonders why it is that, when we know from many sound empirical studies that one in five female children is sexually assaulted,
when victims speak out, we ask them why they waited so long to talk. We question why don’t they remember the details better. We suspect that they misunderstood what happened.
And she concludes,
Recognizing the truth about sexual assault and abuse will mean giving up too many sports and movies and songs and artists. It will mean rethinking institutions and families and power dynamics and the way we interact with each other every day. It will be a lot.
And we are lazy.
I think Jessica Valenti is right about this. That was the gist of what I posted yesterday about the Dylan Farrow-Woody Allen story.
The photo of Jessica Valenti is from her Wikipedia page.