It was her fault
Oh look, it’s hate on women for not stopping men from doing horrible things to women, again? Street poster blaming Merle Streep for raper-dude, though she has said she didn’t know and made a strong statement for victims, against him (in comments below). Possibly connected to the Pentagon Papers movie she’s starring in, and the poster is by right-wing artist Sabo, who Mike Cernovich (Mr. Pizzagate if you’re not familiar with him) is urging people to donate to. The gist of these kind of attacks is so fundamentalist: men are women’s responsibility, not their own.
Sure, blame Meryl Streep for Harvey Weinstein; that makes all the sense in the world.
Solnit quotes herself from a couple of months ago:
Remember that every time a man commits a violent act it only takes one or two steps to figure out how it’s a woman’s fault, and that these dance steps are widely known and practiced and quite a bit of fun. There are things men do that are the fault of women who are too sexy, and other things men do that are the fault of women who are not sexy enough, but women only come in those two flavors: not enough, too much, and it is the fate of heterosexual men to endure this affliction. Wives are responsible for their husbands, especially if their husbands are supremely powerful and terrifying figures leading double lives and accountable to no one. But women are now also in the workforce, where they have so many opportunities to be responsible for other men as well.
She knew.
One of the charges I heard repeatedly against Hillary Clinton; used by Trump, of course. Hillary is corrupt because Bill had an affair. I actually pushed someone on that once, and the person said, “Well, I heard Hillary wasn’t very nice to Bill’s other women.”
There is no winning if you are born a woman.
I look forward to seeing Sabo’s posters of Matt Damon and Russell Crowe.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/matt-damon-russell-crowe-harvey-weinstein-sexual-allegations-fired-killed-story-a7991981.html
YNNB, that could certainly explain Matt Damon’s desperate attempt to tell us women how to look at sexually inappropriate behavior. He just wanted to make sure he wasn’t seen as being the “bad” kind – which probably gibes with the “legitimate rape” of that asshole legislator.
I do hope that Ms Streep sues the ‘artist’ for defamation.
Its always the fault of Someone Else. Which explains why so many who did ‘know’ were able to slide along in silence.
iknklast: Unfortunately, on this one point, I do think it’s fair to criticize Hillary–not as Bill Clinton’s wife, and not for him having affairs, but rather, as part of his strategic team (which she undeniably was), and how they dealt with women who came forward. Virtually everything we’ve seen come out about how Weinstein tried to keep a lid on accusations was something we got a preview of from Bill Clinton’s term in the White House (not just Lewinsky, mind you; there was at least one reasonably credible accusation of actual sexual assault against him–predating his time as President, but during his time as Governor).
One of the problems that Hillary has had since she started gunning for elected office has been the issue of her involvement in Bill’s administration. She wants it both ways–on things that went well, she wants credit (to the point that, during the primary run against Obama, she counted her years as First Lady as part of her time in government, in order to be able to say she had more actual experience than he did). But everything that was bad about that time (including the rise of ‘let the Overton Window move to the Right’ centrism), she tries to pretend had nothing to do with her. I truly do feel that the desire to have it both ways, and the cognitive dissonance it caused in Democratic voters, was part of what suppressed turnout for her last year. And I think we need to confront that if we’re going to move forward aggressively against this kind of thing.
Unfortunately, that’s a conversation that requires nuance and attention to context (I kept having to edit the above, because I know damned well it’s not as simple as, “Hillary slut-shamed Monica,” but that there will always be people who want to read such critiques that way), neither of which are particularly easy in the Age of Trumpets.