It's About Weinstein Time

It was kind of hard to ignore the Harvey Weinstein stuff in the media this week, but incase you missed it, the New York Times broke this story. It was quickly followed by this piece in the New Yorker, which I think is even more damning. In them, it is reported that Mr. Weinstein has been sexually harassing and/or assaulting women for thirty-some years, and using manipulation, money, and power to get by with it.

After the New Yorker piece, his wife of a decade left him. This seems to be the only thing that has genuinely caused remorse in him, if you ask me. Every statement he has made, he has seemed to me to want to breeze things over and not take his actions as seriously as he should.

Then, yesterday, I saw this, where Weinstein says that "we all mistakes" and that he wants a second chance - this before he even goes through with getting help. It really irritated me. He doesn't get to deem, on his own, what is a simple mistake and what is a sick behavioral pattern or mental issue, and he sure as hell shouldn't be talking about his second chance before he even makes up for screwing up the first one.

At any rate, regardless of Mr. Weinstein's apparent lack of a moral compass, I have to say that this story has shown me the progression in how sexually based offenses are handled in the media. In my lifetime, it has moved leaps and bounds. When I was a kid in the early 90's, Mike Tyson was convicted of date raping a young beauty contestant and served three years in prison for it. This article details the timeline of events, and it is long, but pay special attention to what one of the jurors, David Vahle, says in the section labeled "The Decision":

"Right after the case was over, maybe a week, I was not comfortable with the verdict. Whether she wanted it or not, I don’t know. She was enthralled by Tyson. Like any person with a celebrity, she wanted to get to know him, go out with him. Why would any girl go up to a man’s room at 3 in the morning, or whatever time it was, without knowledge that something could happen?"

Mind you, this from a man who just voted him guilty. I'm going to guess that post trial, like my parents and many others I heard spew nearly verbatim this same line of thinking, he had been listening to opinions in the media. I can remember these things frequently being said about the victim, such as that she must have wanted it, going up to his room and all. As if there is ever a time a person has no right to autonomy and control over their own being?

It can be argued that the case was light on physical evidence, but to suggest fault on the victim's part because "she should have known something could happen" is ridiculous. By that line of thinking, a woman deserves to be raped for walking in a parking garage alone, late at night, because she knew it was a risky act. You should have a right to your own body regardless of location or situation, always. As far as I can find, the victim never went after Tyson's money. Why on earth would someone whose character had never been questioned prior to the incident suddenly want to destroy Tyson? It doesn't even make sense, yet people insisted she was at fault.

In less than thirty years, we went from that to today's coverage of Harvey Weinstein, which I think says a lot. With him, the acts are (now) being taken seriously and women are being heard, and more importantly, believed. I don't think Weinstein expected to be nailed this hard because he was still countering in standards and expectations of thirty years ago, but I don't think that's any excuse either. I'm thoroughly enjoying the media nailing him.

I really think the turning point in how these things were reported was the Steubenville assault. The media had progressed some by then, but still, as noted here, there was so much sympathy for the convicted in that case that it was stomach turning. It was as if because the victim was drunk and hadn't been known to be penetrated by a penis, the media actually felt bad for the perpetrators, even though they still violated her body!

I think that conviction meant the world in a lot of women's eyes, and I think the scrutiny the media came under for feeling sorry for the perpetrators did too. As Brock Turner's victim would later so eloquently relay, regardless of what she did, she did not deserve to be assaulted, or for it to be treated as a non-grave offense. I feel like a shift started with Steubenville, and is continuing to move forward as alleged sexual predators are outed, and I love it.