Lay the Blame

It has been a while since I've felt about writing about anything that has been in the news. I've been dealing with an elephant. ( Old joke: how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time but it still makes you sick.) However, Harvey Weinstein is in the news and I have something to say.

The only person to blame is Harvey Weinstein.

I could stop there because that is all there is to say but it is important that while we look for ways of stopping these things happening again we do not blame anyone other than the perpetrator. 

Society is changing (thankfully) and it is less acceptable for old men to use their power to sexually intimidate, younger, less powerful women. That is good. Women will start to stand up for themselves because they know it is wrong but if they don't then it's not their fault. They didn't make him behave like that in the first place. 

It is stupid to say that, 'everyone knew' and so it is everyone's fault. What exactly is it that everyone knew? Because knowing that someone is a dirty old man does not make you responsible for them, especially in a society where speaking up about your suspicions (because without evidence they are only suspicions) can cause you harm. 

There are people on social media today being very cross with Judi Dench and Meryl Streep, although less so with George Cloony, who seems to have said the same thing, which is roughly, "Shit, I didn't know he was that bad."  They knew that he was a difficult and powerful man. They knew he made sexual jokes. They knew he had relationships with younger women. They didn't know women had made allegations against him and were paid off. They didn't know any details of what he did.

Some people are trying to make this into a party political thing. It is cross party. It affects everyone in all areas of society. Some powerful men use sex as a weapon and they should stop.

In some areas of the media there is incredulity that he could be both brilliant and a sexual predator. We need to remember that people are complex. We all do bad things but as a society there are some bad things that we won't tolerate and thankfully this predatory behaviour is becoming one of those things.

I was listening to something on the radio about Cyril Smith, yesterday and how there was enough evidence to prosecute him for the molestation of the boys.  It is inconceivable to think that today someone doing what people knew he was doing would not only get away with it but get a knighthood, signed off by the Prime Minister after she had read the police report and that is a good thing but that hasn't happened because we blamed the people who refused to believe he could be both a good man politically and a monster when it came to what he liked to do to boys. It has happened because we believe that men can do those things.  It has happened because we believe small boys when they tell us a powerful man made them touch their willy.  It happened because we, as a society, have grown up and are prepared to blame Cyril Smith for doing awful things.

Some of social media want to blame men. All men.  All men are terrible and capable of these things, they say.  The rest wants to blame women.  All women.  All women are temptresses and have brought it on themselves or are to blame for not calling out predatory behaviour before.  A female fashion designer has blamed women for wearing provocative clothes, for which she must blame herself, based on the clothes she designs.

These people are not to blame and blaming them allows the real crimes to be watered down.  This is not acceptable.  It was wrong.  He's been sacked.  Hopefully, if he does it again there will be enough evidence to prosecute him and other men who feel tempted to do the same will know it is wrong.