It’s like a drug. Every so often, we have to get a new fix for our moral outrage. That outrage may or may not be justified but it allows us to splutter and yell at others – usually a group of others – while remaining without fault/sin ourselves. Sometimes people vent their spleen about a group by focusing on an individual: this happened with Lisa Evans, the wife of NI footballer Corry Evans, who was upset with the ref giving a penalty against NI, but who chose to focus in her tweet on the ref’s nationality, going so far as to create an imaginary relative of the man who had sought shelter in the UK.
But the Lisa-and-the-gypsy-ref’s-imaginary-relative eruption pales to nothing in the face of the condemnation that’s been falling on Hollywood stars, English MPs and anyone who’s deemed not to have been respectful of women in the past fifty years. Harvey Weinstein, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Spacey, Michael Fallon MP, Michael Colgan…the list is endless, it seems.
Maybe it’s time to get a few facts straight. A man putting his unwanted hand on the knee of a younger colleague, male or female, is bad. So too is forced sexual intercourse or rape. But there is a difference between the two. A lot of commentators and members of the public seem to figure that all insults to women must be a hanging matter.
People are being accused and the public are largely taking that to mean they are guilty. No they’re not. Not in the eyes of the law, until such time as credible evidence is produced to substantiate charges. Everything else is mob rule.
People are having their professional careers destroyed for actions that were separate from their profession. We don’t know that Harvey Weinstein or Kevin Spacey or Michael Fallon were guilty of the charges levelled against them. But even if they were, it doesn’t change their skills as an actor or a producer or politician. So why do we watch people like Spacey have their careers brought to a juddering stop, for alleged actions that had no intrinsic connection with their acting ability?
But once the pursuing pack begin to bark, of course, no voice calling for due legal process or even questioning the fit of the punishment to the action is heeded – things like these are brushed aside as the pursuing pack taste blood.
It’s certainly true that men have abused women over the decades and centuries, in small ways and big. But we need to remember that there is a difference between small and big, and a need to distinguish between the two. After that, we should keep in mind the fact that people are innocent until proved guilty. Otherwise we’re just mindless killer dogs, leaping to take a mouthful out of yet another big name.
This scandal looks headed in the same direction as the child abuse scandal, where adults are now fearful, under any circumstances, of touching a child. How can men be sure that a comforting arm round the shoulders or brief hug isn’t interpreted as unwanted sexual attention?
Because women have been treated abominably, in small ways and big, by men, shouldn’t mean all men are frightened into keeping their hands behind their back and their gaze fixed on the floor.
Comments are closed.