Young women are still young women and can sometimes be convinced wrong is not wrong. We had a local coach go down for molesting young women in sports a couple of year ago, been doing it for years, and most the parents had no idea.
One of the best things to come out of MeToo is that it encourages all women to talk about anything they’re uncertain about. It doesn’t have to be to the press or on social media or even the police, just the idea that there is no shame in asking questions and expressing doubts, and sharing stories.
I would encourage parents to check in with their kids, casual like, boys and girls, because you never know when they might say something.
Now if a guy came at me today, I’d break his nose or worse rather than let something like that happen to me, but when you’re uncertain about your body which pretty much every young girl because you’re surrounded by images and expectations you can’t meet, and endless judgments about your physical form until you die… it’s not as hard as you think to make someone question themselves enough to not only let things happen but not say anything about it.
A lot of the women Weinstein and Nassar targeted were not weak-willed women. It’s more complex than that.
Absolutely. I am in full agreement with you, and a young woman with a greater sense of self-confidence and independence is more likely to speak out (either in public or just to a circle of other young women) about a situation that she perceives as wrong somehow.
So many of these stories are about otherwise smart, talented and successful women who, when faced with a situation they knew was not right, were still afraid to come forward and speak out for the fear that they would not be believed and/or would face backlash for doing so. The more we empower our young women now to believe in themselves, be confident and independent, and most of all support one another in situations like this (and understand we will support them as well), the more we will be preventing situations like this from even happening.
I have a daughter who is a gifted athlete. She’s the youngest of our four children and the only girl. She loves soccer, softball and swimming and has done them all at competitive levels. She’s now 12 (almost 13!) and has fallen in love with track and field after a friend’s father let her throw a javelin. She’s a top thrower in her age range and is training for heptathlon. I love her coaches and trainers, but no way do they spend time unsupervised with her. Either an older sibling is also working out with them or I’m there, period. I don’t know if I’ll ever trust any of these folks, as great as they appear to be, with her alone.
I don’t know how much you followed Nassar, but in some cases, during the abuse, the parents were there. They didn’t recognize it for what it was. This guy was ultimate sleaze, like convinced them he was doing something medical. Even the parents doubted themselves.
As a society, I just don’t think we talk about bodies, and sex or anything in those areas openly enough to be able to recognize problems when they occur. I believe at least one father committed suicide because he was so devastated he was there when it happened. This guy is just a monster, destroyed lives.
Agreed on the monster bit. We talk very openly with our daughter (and our sons) about their bodies and sexuality. I don’t know what other precautions we can take, but I still worry.
Well that’s great! If she’s comfortable talking about the “normal” everyday stuff, and you still doubt people even if they have degree and the backing of some big sport’s body or school, you’re in great shape.
Yet another small bit of good coming out of the horrible revelations about situations like USA Gymnastics and Dr. Nassar is that any organization that didn’t already have safeguards in place is moving quickly to enact them.
In my daughter’s world for example, her school sports teams have had policies in place for several years that prohibit male/female coaches from being alone with a team of players of the opposite sex. If you’re a dad coaching a girl’s team, you have to have a female assistant (over 18 and not related to you) at any practice, and both coach and assistant have to have gone through certification training that includes background checks. Her club volleyball has a similar policy, where male coaches cannot be alone with female athletes. Practices are multi-team large scale things, so everyone is all together, and when the teams travel the parents are responsible for the travel, lodging and care of the athletes, not the coaches or the club, so again nobody is ever alone with a coach or trainer. It’s all very upfront for the benefit of the parents, and we’ve had the talk with our daughter about situations to avoid and how to talk to us if she should feel weird about anything that happens.
Interesting article here on the Woody Allen/Mia Farrow allegations. I think this shows the dangers of #MeToo, especially in historical allegations where context is difficult.
If you read Robert Wides essays and Moses Farrow/Allens reportings, it is really troubling how those accussations on Allen are being reported as “truth” …
Yes but on the other side you see how they are just being shot down as false, like the good old days when children were not believed and these things dismissed out of hand. I am sure if these revelations came to light today they would be handled a lot different than they were then.
The reality is a little girl could have been abused and some people were happy to call her a liar just because it’s Woody Allen, would be interesting to see how this played out on a non famous person.
The Child Sexual Abuse Clinic of Yale-New Haven Hospital interviewed Dylan nine times before concluding that she had not been molested.
I’m hardly qualified to say whether their methodology or conclusions are accurate, but in this case the allegations were absolutely not dismissed out of hand at the time. No charges were filed against Allen because the prosecutors evidently didn’t think they had a case they could win.
It’s far from a complete takedown of Weide’s arguments. For example, the thing about the D.A. not pressing a case yet at the same time claiming to have probable cause – he was later rebuked for that rather bizarre statement, which Jessica Winter confines to a parenthetical. Also, the point Winter makes that Dylan’s story ‘was not marred by inconsistencies’ is contradicted by the Yale New Haven report, which states: “There were important inconsistencies in Dylan’s statements in the videotape and in her statements to us.” And the bit about the allegations not happening ‘during a custody dispute’ (based on a difference of a week or two in the timeline) seems rather like nitpicking to me. There is no question at any rate that an extremely acrimonious and emotionally-charged breakup was the backdrop to these allegations, and it’s easy enough to suppose that Mia might have seen a custody battle on the horizon.
There’s no question that Weide comes down strongly as an Allen defender. I don’t take anything he says at face value. But he points to specific pieces of evidence, like the Yale New Haven report, which IMO anyone genuinely interested in the case – rather than just piggybacking on #MeToo in order to protect their film-industry career or claim to be on the right side of history – ought to know, and think, about.
Taken in connection with Moses Farrow’s comments, I would say there is plenty of room for reasonable doubt.
Personally, I have no idea whether Woody Allen molested Dylan Farrow. I hope he didn’t because a) I always hope a child was not molested and b) I would like to believe that this artist whose work I admire, while obviously a flawed man, is not a monster.
That was a great write-up, and I agree with you in that I hope it never happened. I posted the Dylan Farrow CBS interview in this thread because, regardless of how anyone feels about this particular case, the claims are out there, and given the current climate along with the director losing support, it’s probably going to end Allan’s career (Amazon will likely release A Rainy Day in New York quietly on a few streaming services but skip a theatrical release altogether), which is worth discussing. I love Allan’s films. He was one of few American directors to consistently provide great roles for mature actresses. I’m pretty conflicted, and don’t doubt this troubled family history encouraged Ronan Farrow’s brilliant work to expose Weinstein.
It’s kind of strange that she’s asking why MeToo spared Woody Allen and at the same time others are claiming it shows the danger of MeToo. I guess either “side” can choose what they want it to mean, and either approach does not diminish what MeToo has allowed to happen… no matter what happens to Woody Allen, Nassar and Weinstein and predators like them are not as likely to succeed again, at least not in the near future.
No, she was younger than that when Woody met her. He had been dating Mia since 1979 and apparently Soon-Yi had an uncredited role in Hannah and Her Sisters, when she would have been about 16 (her exact age is not known). According to Wikipedia (obligatory grain of salt), their relationship began at the end of the 1980s when she would have been perhaps 19.
But, yes, she was never actually Woody’s stepdaughter.
