The Power of Allegations

I find myself somewhat conflicted when reading the multitude of reports of women who have told their stories of sexual abuse/manipulations suffered at the hands of celebrities (and near celebrities). To be clear - I have no confusion or ambiguousness in terms of the absolute inappropriateness of the abuse. It is always wrong when one person uses their size, their hierarchical position, their power or their status to manipulate or to force someone to do something that they do not want to do. There are no exemptions this rule. One might be able to argue that forty or more years ago the rules were less clearly articulated - but since the mid 1970s, one would have had to live in a cave a hundred feet below the surface, with no access to any media to be able to convincingly argue that  they did not know that forcing a person to be involved in any sexual activity was wrong. But I am conflicted by the harsh condemnation of the men who have been accused and in many cases, the life changing consequences of those allegations.

I realize that it is at times inconvenient to have to wait until people are tried and convicted before they have to face the consequences of their activities. I appreciate the fact, that for the victim it is so much more cathartic to be able to scream out J’accuse! and then have the world immediately respond in a punitive fashion. But that is not the way our world is supposed to work. I have no doubt that 99.9% (there are relatively few false allegations CBC, CBC) of those who report abuse have in fact experienced at the very least, highly inappropriate advances and touching but that fact in itself, is not sufficient to condemn all men who have been accused of being abusers.

The list of men who have been accused of abuse is perhaps surprisingly short considering how often one hears about the “casting couch”.  I have no doubt that an overwhelming number of them are quilty. What causes me some concern is how quickly those men have lost their professional positions. Employers have gone from an attitude of seeing how easily they can cover up/hide the “incident” to immediate dismissal with no appeal in what seems like a period of weeks. For example just over a year ago, the person who was to be elected president of the USA got elected in spite of a number of allegations of sexual touching and famous stars such as Bill Cosby appear to have be able to avoid most of the consequences of their alleged abuses. Now if two or more people alleged that something happens, the alleged perpetrator, if they are of high enough status or position, immediately lose their job and in many cases any likelihood of getting another job in the near future.

In the early 1950s, in the USA, there was the House Un-American Activities Committee chaired by Senator McCarthy. During that time some people were accused of being Communists or at least being sympathetic to that ideology and as a consequence they were blacklisted - made unemployable. That blacklist had no legal weight, the individuals were not found guilty by a court of law, but were held guilty by the guardians of public morals and political correctness. There seemed to be some sort of political hysteria that allowed people to comfortably accuse and find guilt - it was a time when it was impossible for the accused to explain or defend themselves.

The current spate of accusations do not seem to differentiate between degrees of sexual inappropriateness. While it is clearly completely wrong for a person to force themselves on someone either through physical strength or by manipulations based on power or status, I am not convinced that posing for a picture of pretending (but not) touching the breasts of a fully clothed, sleeping woman warrants the same sort of consequence. The former act should end in a criminal conviction and the serving of time, the latter act perhaps only warrants a strong slap on the wrist and the public humiliation of being shown for a fool.

The present public outrage (or people getting on a bandwagon for political reasons) is not a constructive way of dealing with the problem. By lumping together all perpetrators into the same pot, we are not distinguishing between those who are perpetual predators of vulnerable people from those who in a moment of stupidity did something that they should not have done. No amount of education or redress would change the former group of perpetrators, the latter group can (and in many cases have) changed their ways.

We, as a society, decided some time ago that public lynching, whether the individual is guilty or not - is not the way to achieve a just society. It feels as if, in our legitimate rage against those who sexually prey upon others, we are - via the social media - agreeing to and participating in a new form of public lynching.