In the last several years, dozens of women have come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against a string of high-profile men including Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, and President Donald Trump. Producer Harvey Weinstein, who was recently fired from his own company for misconduct, is only the latest example.
The headlines generated by these events have focused on these men’s supposed falls from grace. Most have been sued or threatened with lawsuits by multiple women. Many have paid out settlements, personally or through their companies. Ailes, O’Reilly, and Weinstein lost their jobs after long and lucrative careers.
At first glance, this might appear to represent what Girls executive producer Jenni Konner recently called “a tipping point” as far as our society’s attitude toward men who prey on women. Look closer and the picture changes. Ailes was fired to the tune of $40 million. O’Reilly reportedly walked away with $25 million and may be entertaining a return to TV. Bill Cosby has served no jail time for sexual assault to date, although he is scheduled to be retried next spring. (His recent trial on aggravated indecent assault charges ended in a mistrial in June). Harvey Weinstein’s personal net worth is estimated to be around $250 million. And Donald Trump, a man at least ten women have publicly accused of forcibly kissing and/or groping them, is president of the United States.
Women do not trust a system that allows men with social, financial, or state power to get away with anything, from raping a woman to killing a teenager. It’s even harder to trust when you look at who is held accountable, and for what. Contrast the fates of these alleged sexual predators—all multimillionaires who have stayed out of jail and enjoyed decades-long careers while allegedly abusing women on a near-constant basis—to the fates of low-status, poor, and/or black men who are accused of nonviolent crimes. Cosby, the only one of these fallen men potentially facing jail time for his alleged crimes, is 80 years old. Sending him to jail now would be vengeance, not justice.
Justice would be a society in which those who knew of his behavior did not wait until decades into a man’s raping career to stop him. Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance declined to prosecute Weinstein in 2015, despite possessing an audio recording in which Weinstein, among other things, admitted to grabbing a woman’s breast. Maybe, as Vance has argued, that wouldn’t have been enough to win the case. The NYPD has reportedly now launched a criminal investigation of Weinstein for an assault said to have taken place in 2004—too late for many of his alleged victims. (The office has asked anyone with further allegations to come forward.)
If only the lives of women and people of color were valued as highly as property. Kalief Browder was accused of stealing a backpack in 2010, when he was 16 years old. He spent more than three brutal years on Rikers Island awaiting trial, where frequent assaults and long stretches in solitary left him depressed and suicidal. He was released in 2013 when the baseless charges against him were finally dropped. In 2015, days after his 22nd birthday, he killed himself.
Bernard Noble was arrested in New Orleans in 2010 for possession of a bag containing about two joints’ worth of marijuana. For this crime (and thanks to mandatory minimum sentencing), which hurt no one, Noble was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Ronald Washington is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in a Louisiana prison for shoplifting two Michael Jordan jerseys from a sportswear store in 2004. Washington has described his experience as “being buried alive at [a] slow pace.”
Browder, Noble, Washington, and thousands more are victims of a system that discards human beings for being poor, black, and/or neglected or despised by someone in power, whether or not they have hurt anyone. In the wrong hands, the law becomes a weapon. For laughing at Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ confirmation hearing when Sessions was praised for “treating all Americans equally under the law,” Desiree A. Fairooz, a 61-year-old Virginia woman, was found guilty of “disorderly and disruptive conduct” and “parading or demonstrating on Capitol grounds.” A judge tossed the verdict on the grounds that “laughter alone” was legally insufficient to sustain her conviction. Sessions’ Justice Department disagrees: like Cosby, Fairooz will be retried in November.
Even today, there are those who see sexual harassment as fundamentally trivial: a dirty joke here; a playful pinch there—no big deal. People like that should read every word of the allegations against Weinstein et al., which detail acts ranging from coercion, manipulation, being forced to watch a man masturbate, and having your genitals grabbed to being forced to perform oral sex, vaginal rape, and its aftermath. The latest allegations against Weinstein, which include sexual assault, are stomach-turningly consistent. “I tried to get away, but maybe I didn’t try hard enough,” one alleged victim told The New Yorker. Another said that if she were “a strong woman,” she would have fought back physically. Because she didn’t, she “felt responsible.”
Ours is a culture in which powerful men commit crimes like these for decades with near-impunity, while men without power spend life in prison for stealing a jersey and women blame themselves for being attacked.
When it comes to sexual misconduct, we are often exhorted to “believe women.” Thanks most recently to Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow, and to dozens of women who spoke out before them but were not powerful, privileged, or famous enough to be believed, women’s accounts of assault are gaining credibility. But as long as they have power and the ability to increase power for others, men who are known predators will escape long-lasting consequences for their actions.
It’s clear from their statements of support that, somewhere along the way, someone—a mother, sister, friend, boyfriend, or coworker—believed these women. That is not enough. Whisper networks and uncorroborated lists of “shitty media men” are not enough, as well as easy to abuse and unavailable to women outside of elite circles (i.e., most women). Don’t just believe women; defend them. And take action to stop men you know to be rapists and creeps.
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