April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. In a move befitting the U.S. justice system, New York decided to celebrate by honoring one of its most prominent sexual assailants.
Instructions unclear, apparently.
For anyone who forgot to check the news today, lucky you. Feel free to skip this post if you’d like to continue living in blissful unawareness of our country’s most recent insult to sexual assault survivors.
Still here? I warned you.
Justice don’t grow on trees: The Weinstein effect
It was announced today that rapist Harvey Weinstein’s conviction was overturned, due to one of the most outrage-inducing reasons I’ve ever heard.
If that name doesn’t send a chill of “ick” down your spine, again, great job of protecting your mental health by avoiding the sickening negativity that is our 24-hour news cycle.
In October 2017, news broke of something that had been an open secret in the entertainment industry: film producer and unfathomable prick Harvey Weinstein had been using his position of power to abuse countless women for over 30 years.
The resulting scandal sparked the #MeToo movement, which encouraged survivors to spread awareness by sharing their experiences of sexual assault and harassment. This led to further allegations against powerful men across various industries, a phenomenon that became known as the Weinstein effect (although victims may be more likely to call it “about fucking time”).
During Weinstein’s original trial in 2020, over 100 of his victims bravely spoke out about the horrors they endured at his hands. He ended up being sentenced to a paltry 23 years in prison, which is already a slap in the face to those who will live with the results of his abuse for the rest of their lives.
Adding insult to injury, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled today that including these women’s testimonies had resulted in an unfair trial for Weinstein, because… ????
Their (baffling) reasoning for overturning the conviction was that not all of the victims’ allegations were part of the cases being prosecuted, a justification that’s quite simply nonsensical. Including prior offenses in a criminal case is not only highly relevant information, it’s also a routine occurrence in our justice system.
We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes because that testimony served no material non-propensity purpose… The only evidence against defendant [Weinstein] was the complainants’ testimony, and the result of the court’s rulings … was to bolster their credibility and diminish defendant’s character before the jury.
Tell us you don’t give a fuck about women, but in slippery, slimey legalese.
She said (…but he said louder, and with more money)
After recently having read two incredibly in-depth and heavily researched books on the subject (Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow; She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement by Jodi Kantor and Meghan Twohey), it is maddeningly clear that Harvey Weinstein’s victims were telling the truth about what happened to them.
Their individual accounts of both their assaults and Weinstein’s bullying treatment after the fact match unnervingly closely from victim to victim. Additionally, Weinsteins’s blatant efforts to use his money and influence in the entertainment industry to bury the truth and tamper with evidence were unconscionable and, in many cases, effective.
Weinstein methodically and ruthlessly smeared the reputations of countless victims and witnesses, many of whom ended up choosing to not be involved in his prosecution for fear of further retaliation.
There were undoubtedly many more victims than those that came forward, which I will remind you was over 100 women.
Tell us again about how he’s the one who got an unfair trial?
Smear campaigns and failed prosecutions
Out of every 1000 sexual assault cases, 975 perpetrators will walk free.
— RAINN
Today’s announcement was earthshattering, not only for the many, many (seriously, so fucking many) survivors involved in Weinstein’s case, but for sexual assault victims everywhere.
Sexual assault cases are notoriously hard to prosecute in the first place and are incredibly retraumatizing for victims to endure. Those who do report often face disbelief, harassment, and the potential of retaliation from their abusers.
This is all in the hopes that they’ll see a glimmer of justice after the hell they endured. Hopes that end up squashed by an uncaring, unsympathetic system full of loopholes that regularly allow assailants to walk free, just as in the Weinstein case.
#MeToo and lack of support for victims
Fortunately for his victims, Weinstein was also given a separate 16-year sentence by a Los Angeles judge for another rape and sexual assault case, which will keep him behind bars for now. Sadly, there’s already concern about similar arguments being used to overturn the conviction in that case.
To see such a prominent case of the #MeToo era overturned, one with such an obviously guilty perpetrator, is a crippling blow.
If Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr. launches another trial against Weinstein (something representatives say he does intend to do) victims will be forced to endure yet another long and demoralizing trial. That’s if those victims choose to put themselves through the horror of reliving their trauma only to have it picked apart by the public yet again.
Knowing what we know about our justice system, who could blame these women if they decided to bow out to protect their peace? That’s what I tried to do by not reporting the many victimizations I’ve endured at the hands of violent men.
Why didn’t you report?: Invalidation and silencing of victims
Today’s announcement has me revisiting memories of my own personal #MeToo era experiences, hearkening to the mammoth and often insurmountable obstacles victims face when trying to shed light on their abuse.
It was early on in my relationship with the man who was my abuser of five years when I first learned about the #MeToo movement. I was still in serious denial about the harm he was causing me. Between his lovebombing, gaslighting, and other manipulations, I wasn’t yet able to see how deeply entrenched and vulnerable I’d already become.
Prior to meeting him, I’d already experienced multiple sexual assaults and other abuses at the hands of two other men. Sadly, my story is not unique, as victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse are statistically more vulnerable to future instances of abuse.
I rarely posted on social media and had never shared my story publicly before this point. Something about reading story after story of other survivors, however, inspired me and bolstered my resolve.
After writing and rewriting paragraph after anxiety-inducing paragraph about the various crimes committed against my body, I settled on sharing a link to a news article about the movement with the simple caption: #MeToo.
I didn’t go into detail or share anything else about my story due to the well-informed fear of being disbelieved or retaliated against. This first step, admitting to others that I’d been victimized, was hard enough.
My heart raced as I hit post, and a breath I didn’t realize I was holding slipped free as I gazed upon this small piece of truth on the page.
As it turned out, even this small act of solidarity with my fellow survivors would only reinforce my fears of punishment for speaking up.
Felt abused, might delete later
The page barely had time to reload when my phone started buzzing with a call from my then-abuser, furious with me for resharing something so “political”.
He was one of the handful of people who knew about my prior abuse, although (shockingly) he didn’t believe it was an assault because I’d chosen to get too drunk.
This was the same guy who said if I were to be sexually assaulted he wouldn’t want me anymore, because I’d be soiled. He said he’d rather I die fighting than “allow” myself to be violated.
He made it clear to me that by posting, I’d humiliated him as well as myself. He insisted I take the post down, worried people would think he was abusing me.
Imagine if people thought that?!
Perhaps then he wouldn’t have been able to continue abusing me for years to come; although after seeing examples of the invalidation of other victims who’ve been brave enough to speak up, that’s likely wishful thinking.
I refused to delete the post at first, which infuriated him further. After several days of his violent punishments, stonewalling, and belittling claims of being a lying attention seeker, I quietly relented and took it down.
This is what victims are up against when they try to report: disbelief from all sides. The justice system that’s supposed to protect us from harm straight up does not care about our rights to our own bodies, an energy they’ve openly backed up time after time. This leaves us defenseless against those who are free to continue to their violence and abuse.
We thought #MeToo would finally bring us a bit of justice, but it turned out to only bring about more trauma and public shame. If the harm of abuse doesn’t stop even with a conviction, then when could we possibly hope for it to end?