We Need To Stop Protecting Famous Men + You’re Asking All The Wrong Questions About Amber Heard
"Hating women is a bonding ritual for men." - @sarahditum https://t.co/mUpjeWtGus #johnnydepp
- Meghan Murphy (@MeghanEMurphy) May 31, 2016
Hating women is a bonding ritual for men by Sarah Ditum: As the Johnny Depp domestic abuse claims reveal, we are too quick to make excuses for men we admire. The backlash received by Amber Heard for claiming she suffered abuse by her estranged husband is yet another reminder that men are always given the benefit of the doubt over the women they are said to have hurt.
Maybe he didn’t do it. Maybe that man you care about didn’t do that awful thing to the woman you don’t care about very much. Maybe this time, of all the times, is Gone Girl in real life and that man you like - the sports star one, or the actor one, or the musician one, I’m not going to specify - really is the victim of a vicious feminine plot to destroy him. After all, you’d know the real thing if you saw it, wouldn’t you? You’re no rape apologist. You’d never harbour liking or admiration for a man who was abusive or violent to women. We all know that this is at the core of your moral thinking, because you’ve been extremely careful to say so, explicitly, before declaring that this time - this one time - is different.
Well, maybe he didn’t do it. We know that 1.4m women in England and Wales experience domestic violence. We know that one in five women has been the victim of a sexual offence since she turned 16. We know that the volume of violence against women is under-represented in statistics. None of that means that this one man - sports star, actor, musician - did what he has been accused of. Perhaps you have excellent and compelling reasons to believe in his innocence. But, just so we’re completely clear: the fact that you like him is not an excellent and compelling reason to believe in his innocence.
I will let you in on a secret now. A sensational true fact about abusive men. Here goes: pretty much every man who has ever harmed a woman has been liked by someone. Even the ones who aren’t famous have someone to have a pint with. Extraordinary I know, but the ability to be popular with other men - or with other women - has never stood in pristine opposition to the ability to go home and shove your girlfriend against a wall, taking care to focus only on the parts of her body that will stay clothed and covered. Or the ability to tyrannise your girlfriend by jealously monitoring to whom she speaks and what she eats. Or the ability to take a woman to a hotel room and neither know nor care if she’s saying yes or no, or is even capable of saying yes or no.
All the men I’ve known who’ve harmed women have had friends. Sometimes, I’ve been their friend: because one of the strategies of abusers is to isolate the women they victimise, it’s actually easier to be friends with an abuser than with his victim. Unpleasant, I know, but true.
And even when we know what men have done, we don’t like to talk about it. It seems crass somehow to say “that man hurts women”, when he is surely a fascinating and admirable character in so many other ways. William Burroughs shot his wife in the head and Leo Tolstoy raped his wife repeatedly and Roman Polanski sodomised a drugged 13-year-old, but weren’t they geniuses, and wouldn’t it be a shame to let these sad lapses overshadow the genius?
And then, wouldn’t it be an injustice to restrict such generosity to brilliance and condemn the ordinary man? So that guy you work with gets the benefit of the doubt besides.
Because it’s not really about the fact that they’re talented or charming or successful. It’s about the fact that they’re men. There is a quiet conspiracy of power compelling us to preserve every crevice of doubt where a man’s reputation can hold on. It’s true that women are not believed when they come forward with allegations, but even the disbelief has an insultingly shallow quality - if her story becomes impossible to deny then the criteria for her dismissal can be easily changed, and the charge of “liar” replaced with one of “slut” or “gold digger” or “asking for it”. The reason women’s words count for so little is that women are counted for so little.
Hating women is a bonding ritual for men. The locker room chat about who they would and wouldn’t do. The communal rite of shared pornography. The trips to strip clubs, where men perform their pleasure in having women submit. The stags in brothels urging each other to feats of penetration.
Being liked is not just compatible with misogyny: misogyny can be the social code that cements the liking. Patriarchy would have fallen apart a long, long time ago otherwise. So maybe this time, this sports star or actor or musician didn’t do it. It’s possible. And maybe this time, like so many other times, she’s telling the truth. Maybe her life matters at least as much as his career and reputation. That is possible too.
We need to stop protecting famous men -- even if they are beloved like Johnny Depp (by @zblay) https://t.co/x9vlv6qImL
- Emma Gray (@emmaladyrose) May 31, 2016
Segments from "We need to stop protecting famous men" by Zeba Blay:
This isn’t a “bad guy” vs. “good guy” story. Depp could be the sweetest, most loving person in the context of all his other relationships and still be violent, (especially if drugs and alcohol are involved). Heard could very well be fame-hungry and manipulative, and still be a victim of abuse.
This isn’t the first nor will it be the last time that a woman is over-scrutinized in the interest of protecting the legacy and reputation of a rich, famous and powerful man. From the Bill Cosbys to the Sean Penns to the Woody Allens of Hollywood, we will conveniently ignore the pasts of powerful men in order to hold on to the nostalgic, comforting images we have of them. Because how could the men we love to watch on our TV and movie screens, who we have grown to adore in the way we often adore public figures, be capable of something so hideous?
It’s this kind of nostalgia that obscures the fact that Johnny Depp only recently settled into his eccentric, scarves-and-bracelets, Disney-verified persona. For a long time, Depp was seen as an actor who was volatile, tortured, dangerous, and therefore brilliant. His “troubled young star” thing was part of his appeal.
You're asking all the wrong questions about Amber Heard https://t.co/4uHWUERsHJ
- Melissa Jeltsen (@quasimado) May 31, 2016
Summary for "You’re Asking All The Wrong Questions About Amber Heard", Questions answered:
-If Amber Heard was abused as she claims, why was she photographed smiling on Saturday?
-How can the allegations against Depp be true if his daughter insists he is the “sweetest most loving person” she knows?
-But one of his exes said he wasn’t abusive, so isn’t that evidence enough?
-Why didn’t Heard make an official police report if Depp really hit her with a cellphone?
-If it was as bad as Heard says, wouldn’t she have left earlier?
Amber Heard, and how men and women are treated in cases of domestic violence: https://t.co/kSbOsNz576 @salihughes pic.twitter.com/zoL9AmbUU5
- The Pool (@thepooluk) May 31, 2016
Segments from "Amber Heard, and the grotesque disparity in how men and women are treated in cases of domestic violence" by Sali Hughes.
But no matter, because next came the cavalry of celebrities with their unique insight into Depp’s every move. His ex, Vanessa Paradis, loyally leapt to his defence - entirely understandable, only she was neither in their relationship nor present when Heard says the offence took place. Less honourably, Depp’s friends Terry Gilliam (who, memorably, also felt the need to slam Michelle Williams when the father of her child, Heath Ledger, died of a self-inflicted overdose) and Doug Stanhope (piss-poor purveyor of jokes about beating prostitutes) took to Twitter to assure us all that Johnny was a man packed with moral fibre, while Amber - not so much.
While Gilliam claimed Heard must be “a better actress than I thought”, and Stanhope accused her of blackmailing and gold digging (even before her marriage to Depp, Heard’s net personal wealth was estimated at $4.5m. Not that this matters - I’m no millionaire but if my rich husband beat me, and other more powerful members of our profession turned so vociferously against me, I’m pretty sure I’d want some cash too). This persistent belief that what any woman desires and needs more than dignity, self respect or justice is a rich man’s money prevails in so many alleged cases of monstrous abuse and rape. If only people were as appalled about women being used as punchbags, as they are about the possibility of men being taken for a ride.
But unlike the mob baying for Heard to withdraw her allegations (and please let’s be honest - would they still accuse her of lying if her husband were Peter Stringfellow, Darren Day, or someone similarly uncool and unlovable?), both Gilliam and Stanhope are friends of Johnny Depp, which apparently gives them some magic porthole into the private relationship of a married couple of less than two years. This is derisory to anyone with a known victim of domestic violence for a friend, who will agree that you’d often never imagine it of either the abuser or the seemingly happy marriage. Many aspects of any romantic relationship are kept private from friends, family - even children living in the same house. I myself was once very close to an otherwise wonderful man who one day decided to slam his partner headfirst into a shop window. Domestic violence is insidious, secret, unpredictable and delivered frequently by nice, clever men who publicly adore their wives and hold down great jobs and friendships. And by the same token, the victims of domestic violence, like anyone else, can be flawed and even downright unsavoury people themselves. A woman can be cynical, greedy, not very bright, manipulative, dishonest, frumpy, beautiful, fat, thin, black, white or brown and still get whacked hard in the face by her ostensibly lovely partner. If you believe one woman is more deserving, or even more likely to be hit than any other, then that gives greater insight into your own core beliefs than Johnny Depp’s, and frankly, you’d be wiser not to share on Twitter.
Whether or not Johnny Depp is guilty, there’s no doubt his reputation and status as a deeply loved, successful and well paid actor will prevail. Amber Heard’s future is less assured. Because a society, we are infinitely more forgiving of men who are violent towards women than we are of the rare cases when a woman is being dishonest (the vast majority of dropped domestic violence cases hit a wall not because of any evidence of lying, but because women, often guilty, ashamed, scared for their personal safety or of facing their abuser in court, cease to co-operate with the police or CPS). National treasure Ozzy Osbourne tried to strangle now-estranged wife Sharon, convicted rapist Mike Tyson is now some sort of novelty act on reality TV, Chris Brown still enjoys a lucrative career after beating the crap out of Rihanna. Fortune favours the famous male perpetrator, sometimes much more so than it does the woman terrorised at his hands.
What goes on in the marriage of anyone outside our families and friendships is none of our business. A court will attempt to uncover the truth in this horrible debacle, and in the meantime, it’s arguably true that our picking over the bones of Depp and Heard’s break-up makes victims of both parties. But what is everyone’s business is the grotesque disparity in how men and women are treated in cases of domestic violence - as demonstrated so unedifyingly in the past week - and how this inevitably and demonstrably impacts on the willingness of ordinary victims to put themselves in the firing line to report the crimes committed against them. A decent person is capable of both trusting a victim and of believing a defendant is innocent until proven guilty. Any woman claiming to have been beaten by her husband deserves our sympathy and our respect, not judgement and defamation. Because there’s a good chance that one day, the victim will be someone you know, her attacker, a seemingly good egg. Then, you may suddenly see Amber Heard as more than just the cynical wife of an unimpeachable hero, and wonder if you punched a woman while she was already down.
OP note: Great articles to use for those embarrassing facebook friends or certain commenters on ONTD.
Image source | First tweet article by Sarah Ditum | Second tweet article by Zeba Blay | Third tweet article by Melissa Jeltsen | Fourth tweet article by Sali Hughes