What I don’t get is , if you have evidence and can prove this abuse happened and on top of that he is actively damaging your career for years after breaking up, why not come out sooner?
I checked and they split in 2014.
I mean, over the course of 4 years since, she had no support system that would have advised her to come out with this news?
I see he had 2 relationships before Dykstra, I wonder if they will have anything to come forward with.
I wonder how he is treating his wife?
Because stepping forward about this kind of thing is scary, not least because people have a tendency to react incredibly insensitively and inappropriately and it often incites a torrent of abuse from random members of the public. But now there is a national movement to support you.
The public and somewhat the law is mostly giving victims a voice now when before you might as well just have stuck your head on the chopping block, kissed your career good-bye and etched slut on your forehead… even in 2014.
Yes, this is the sad truth that many of us have come to realize. I mean we all kinda knew it was hard, but just how much structural resistance there was to even being heard I wasn’t aware of 5-10 years ago.
I have seen multiple therapists. (For another issue - depression.)
Fortunately, each has agreed with me on this issue. So I’m good, thanks.
Also, I have found other partners, just not ones who go out drinking late into the night with “guy friends.” So I’m good there, too.
This entirely. Fully agree. She comes out and says this in 2014, and then people say “Well, she’s just saying this because they broke up” or “because he dumped her.” Or, they go to “Why didn’t she leave him before, when this happened?”
I mean, there really shouldn’t be a window on that kind of thing. If it happened, it happened, and speak up when you’re able to and want to.
And, back to LK’s original question, as others have mentioned, 2014’s environment was not the same as 2018’s.
So much this, and then looking back at how Weinstein’s name would get dropped years ago regarding this stuff and nothing happened till recently is mind boggling.
It really is a cultural shift. Us lay-folk would hear about the ubiquitousness of the casting couch and if we raised an eyebrow to say “Yeesh,” somehow we got assured that this was just how it was done. Which looking back, so very fucked up.
Oh sure. I mean I could list off dozens of professional athletes with varying degrees of charges against them. And they all amounted to nothing.
Less than nothing in many cases as the victims were revictimized by the public, in a rush to ‘defend the honor’ of the highly paid athletic mercenary. How quick people were to latch on to any failing, any contradictory statement, any perceived ‘she was asking for it’ justification they could.
I remember my own feelings. How when it was local to brush off the accusations ‘eh she’s lying for the fame’ or something. It never sat right how they’d get attacked and villainized, but it didn’t bother me nearly as much as it should have.
Which is why I’m not attacking those who are defending the guy. I remember that impulse, and remember my own process of growth here. It wasn’t until 4-5 years ago that my own perception really shifted on this.
The other factor I was going to mention, and this is IMO the most grossly pernicious part, is that in a lot of these cases the victim internalized that this sort of thing was normal and possibly their fault, and only now with the widespread reports from other people in similar circumstances is it becoming clear that no, something really untoward happened and it wasn’t their responsibility.
Yep, in that respect only, it’s almost like fraternity hazing. “Oh, this is just what everyone does to get into this milieu, so it’s expected I go along with it. And if it feels completely messed up, well, that’s on me.”
Yes, that’s where the deeply unequal power differential comes in. In almost every case, the guy is some bigshot, usually much older, wealthy, and often famous, and he just completely overpowers the girl.
I’m sure they don’t think of themselves as predators. Charlie Rose, I have no doubt, thought of himself as just a dirty old man. What’s the harm in it, right? But when you’re a 23 year old intern and 75 year old Charlie Rose shows up at work in a silk robe open all the way, nothing on under it, leering at you, you probably see it differently.
Not Weinstein, though. He knew what he was. That shit was calculated.
Oh definitely fucked up! We, the public, absolutely share blame in this type of behavior being allowed as long as it was.
But it’s easy to brush off things that don’t impact you, and you have no real influence over anyhow. Culture changes are hard, so we, the public, took the easy way out. ‘It wasn’t that bad’, ‘it’s just an isolated incident’, ‘they did X, so really they deserved it’, ‘why didn’t they speak up sooner, they’ve got ulterior motives’, ‘they’re just looking for fame and a quick buck’.
It wasn’t right. It was easy. I’m just glad that, far too late, we as a society have started to change.
Yeah, the hazing thing is on point.
Well the NDAs… I don’t know that I will ever see NDAs in the same light again. I hate them. they should never be used to silence people like this. It’s just… sick.
The NDAs and PIs were a coverup. What made Weinstein next-level was the system where he would invite these young girls to meetings with a female producer in the room and then the producer would get a phone call and leave 10 minutes in. That level of sophistication and coordination is just something else.
I think the cover-up is just as bad if not worse. It allowed him to get those victims because no one could talk about it without fear of a very heavy hammer coming down on them if they did.
There’s a big difference between someone like Mario Batali who gets handsy when he’s drunk off his ass, or someone like Charlie Rose who as far as I could tell honestly thought he’s a harmless charming old goat, or Louis CK who clearly has a screw loose somewhere, and Weinstein’s premeditated predation.
All of the above attempted damage control to various levels of success, and all are pigs of various degrees, but Weinstein has the coldest blood of the bunch.
Oh god yes. NDA’s have been ruined, especially when they allow the predator to continue predations.
NDA’s in cases of abuse are particularly heinous, and while the law of unintended consequences may strike, would it be terrible if they could not be applied to situations of abuse?
I don’t think we’re disagreeing. What I am saying though Weinstein was able to do what he did for as long as he did because an he army lawyers, assistants, friends, just people in general who helped him keep going. Yes, the first victim, bad, no okay… probably don’t even know who she was but his length of time as a predator… in circles that new, the enabling made it so much worse.
I keep reading about lawyers being afraid to lose NDAs, claiming that somehow these things protect the victim… it just seems like that’s not true. I understand if a powerful woman is “outed” as a victim of assault that some in society will perceive her as less powerful… and that sucks. Society needs to change though, not draft these documents that keeps her name out of the public but also it’s keep these pattern offenders from ever paying any consequences, at all except dollar which can mean very little to the rich.
My understanding, and I’m not a lawyer, is that NDAs are not enforceable to contain or protect criminal behavior, but in many of these sexual harassment and abuse cases the boundary of criminal behavior is hazy at best. Even Weinstein wasn’t a violent rapist, he was a coercive manipulator. And a whiny one at that, if you listen to the tape.
What they need to do is change the rules so speaking out about sexual abuse can’t be protected under NDA even when it isn’t clearly criminal. But I don’t know if that would pass legal muster.