#NoRapistsInOffice

It’s no surprise to me that many men in positions of power, in recent years, have been accused of some sort of sexual assault. With the #MeToo movement, a lot of women have been empowered to call sexual predators out for their gross actions.

It’s also no surprise to me that many of these women, who tried to stand up for themselves were called liars, accused of trying to only get money from a powerful man, or even had their lives destroyed.

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men…” – John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

The power dynamic between men and women is important to pay attention to, and the fact that the great majority of positions of power are occupied by men means that the balance is significantly off and skewed in the direction of men. These people, in the most powerful positions, in the highest offices, control the puppet strings. The have significant influence over how the world operates. If one of them does something wrong, it is impossibly difficult to take him down.

If someone on a lower part of the imagined social hierarchy we’ve constructed accuses someone higher up of wrongdoing, there’s a very small likelihood of anything happening. So, if a woman has significantly less money, and is also in a lower societal position, accuses a powerful man of rape or sexual assault, it’s unlikely for anything significant to happen. Because he has so much more power than her, he has the ability to make this accusation go away (or fade to insignificance in the background). 

Only with large group effort can we get an extremely powerful person out of their position of control.

It took 60 women speaking their truths to send Cosby to prison.

6 famous women for Weinstein (and an entire social movement) to go to prison.

5 women for Louie C.K. to…. stop doing comedy for a while  (and then return a few months later)

What makes these men SO special that a single allegation isn’t enough? 

1 Male Celebrity Life > 1 Female Non/Celebrity Life 

Does the status of celebrity automatically strip them away from any wrongdoing?

What do certain individuals do to receive such privileges? Why are their lives and worths so high that it takes an entire group of people to take them down?

And what do we do when 2 out of the 3 potential next presidents of the United States have been accused of sexual assault? Where is the logic in electing a person to one of the most powerful positions on the entire fucking planet, when we know they’ve ALREADY misused the power they currently have?

What makes us think that giving them MORE power would be a good idea? Now we, all of a sudden, place them at the top of the social hierarchy, so high that they can only be taken down by an entire society, and put our trust in them to handle this power responsibly?

I have no words for how infuriating this whole process is. I feel powerless in face of these powerful people. It feels like I’m screaming into a void that goes nowhere, while corrupted men continue to do whatever they want, impervious to my cries, receiving little to no consequences for their indiscretions.