You know those people who simply don’t feel a shred of shame or guilt? Do you think they possess some kind of warped baddie superpower that blasts the shame or guilt they should be feeling onto the very people who they’ve harmed?
I do.
And I think they’ve had years - no, centuries - of practice.
Following the allegations about Russell Brand coming to light, there were some pretty horrific comments on social media, from some pretty horrific people, all excitably rushing to his defence. And the worst ones I’ve seen so far have been from women…
‘Innocent until proven guilty’ has been thrown around a lot, with one horrific female misogynist suggesting that if there was any truth to the allegations, the women featured on the Dispatches programme wouldn’t have been hiding their identities.
Can you imagine the treatment they might have succumbed to if they hadn’t remained anonymous?
I can’t pretend to know what those women have been through. But I can begin to understand a little about where the shame comes from.
After being grabbed by a man on millennium NYE, who, as I was approaching the end of a side street alone, aggressively asked me for a new year’s kiss while grabbing and ripping my top, I spent years thinking, and saying out loud, that I was stupid for walking along that bit of street alone.
I was absorbing the guilt, the shame - the responsibility. Taking it from him.
I recently wrote a scene in my book, No Worries if Not! that explored a similar theme.
Charlotte, my main character, is sitting in the pub with her workmates. Her sleazy boss takes a seat next to her. He leans close, he tells her she’s great, his knees are touching hers and his hand is squeezing her arm - for what feels like an age. His breath is so close it’s fluttering her hair in and out of her face as he speaks.
Her first feeling is one of overwhelming unease.
Her first thought is - did I do something to encourage this?
I don’t think that this is some kind of personal self esteem issue. I think it’s something that’s been drummed into us. How many rapists go to prison? How many sexual harassment cases go to court?
How many women are left shamed, exposed, isolated and fearful for attempting to go through a process of speaking their truth and holding a man to account?
We are therefore not asking ourselves those questions because deep down we believe that we might have a point. We are asking ourselves those questions because we will absolutely, without doubt, have to respond to them repeatedly down the line if we decide to take a stand. Whether it’s through a direct question, or someone doubting our truth.
Was it our fault?
I never did report that man. I felt too ashamed. I had been drinking. I ditched my friends to walk that street alone.
Neither did I report the man who flashed at me when I was 17 and walking down a street at 2.30am with a friend.
I did, however, report the man who said to me, a 17 year old on work experience, ‘don’t tell anyone, but I’ll take you out one night next week.’
The office had just done a collection for his new baby.
He was probably in his 30s.
The thing is, I couldn’t find the words to say what actually happened. I felt ashamed. So while I reported him to the director for making me feel uncomfortable, I didn’t actually say what he had said to me.
I was too ashamed. Too ashamed at my lack of response in the moment. At the fact I didn’t simply tell him to fuck off. The fact that I just politely and nervously giggled quietly in response, desperate to move the conversation on.
Thankfully, I was moved to another team. But looking back, I wish I’d had the courage to say exactly what had happened. It makes me feel stupid and weak thinking about it. But when we are shocked or frightened or feeling out of our depth in a moment, especially at a young age, it’s incredibly difficult to do anything other than freeze.
And that can last for a long time…
That dickhead female misogynist spouting all that bullshit on social media would have you believe she is a strong, liberated woman. In reality, she’s a gobshite who is willingly bending over for the patriarchy - and attempting to drag the rest of us down with her by encouraging these dangerous views.
Right now, I am feeling ashamed for having championed Brand’s work in addiction recovery, and for laughing at some of his jokes on TV panel shows. As, I’m sure, many of us are. But once we finally get to hear the voices of victims, women who have been silenced through fear and power, we have to listen.
Why is it so difficult to accept - and to say out loud - that some men are just plain bad?
In fact, it’s much more than just ‘difficult’, it’s dangerous.
But, clearly, that’s not exclusively down to the sinister power of the man in question, or the men covering up or keeping silent about his crimes. But also the misogynistic women with huge media platforms - like Katie Hopkins, Julia Hartley-Brewer and Beverley Turner - who feed us relentless bullshit about who they say we should be fearful of, while embracing the fuck out of the real threat to women and society - the patriarchy and the dangerous men it protects at our expense.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash