Just a few brief years in the past, Harvey Weinstein was broadly thought of the monster in opposition to which all different alleged sexual abusers have been measured. As he begins his New York state retrial for a sequence of rape and sexual assault prices over a interval of years, that consensus has damaged.
To see simply how extensive of a cultural swing we’re within the midst of, observe the questions right-wing commentator Candace Owens and manosphere hero Joe Rogan — notable “just asking questions” provocateurs — have begun asking on Weinstein’s behalf.
“After looking over this case, I’ve concluded that Harvey Weinstein was wrongfully convicted and basically just hung on the Me Too thing,” right-wing commenter Candace Owens stated on a podcast on Sunday. Owens is within the midst of selling “Harvey Speaks,” a sequence of jailhouse interviews with Weinstein which she guarantees will exonerate him.
“I can’t believe I’m on Harvey Weinstein’s side,” stated Joe Rogan on his podcast in March. “I thought he was guilty of, like, heinous crimes and then you listen, and you’re like ‘Wait, what? What is going on?’” Rogan says Owens’s sequence satisfied him to alter his thoughts on Weinstein.
This high-profile help for Weinstein is a part of a bigger anti-Me Too, anti-feminist backlash that took off in earnest in 2023, arguably starting with the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp home violence trial. The days by which America was transfixed by accusation after accusation of sexual violence dedicated by well-known males are lengthy over. Gone is the period by which it appeared potential that America was going to really maintain sexual predators accountable, no matter their fame and energy. In this second, America is extra usually transfixed by the concept these well-known males aren’t so dangerous in spite of everything — that perhaps the ladies who accused them are merely mendacity.
For Owens and Rogan to embrace even Harvey Weinstein indicators a real sea change within the place the Me Too motion holds in American tradition, and with it, a change in how we perceive sexual violence. In the primary days after Weinstein was accused, round 2017 and 2018, he was handled as a kind of boogeyman, a person whose crimes have been so many and so monstrous that each one the opposite sexual crimes coming to gentle across the identical time paled as compared.
Now, Weinstein himself is outwardly no Weinstein.
“He’s no Weinstein,” commenters stated of all the opposite accused males in these months: Louis C.Okay., Al Franken, Garrison Keillor. Over the following few years, as Weinstein confronted jail time and the opposite males by and enormous didn’t, Weinstein turned, because the feminist commenter Jessica Valenti wrote in 2022, some extent of comparability subsequent to which everybody else appeared not notably dangerous. “Weinstein went to jail,” Valenti wrote, “so that when a woman complains about Louis CK winning a Grammy, men can scoff at her greedy overreach.”
Now, Weinstein himself is outwardly no Weinstein.
Weinstein is at present dealing with retrial in New York as a result of his 2020 responsible verdict was thrown out on a procedural difficulty. He remains to be serving out a 16-year sentence he acquired after a 2022 responsible verdict in Los Angeles, however a not responsible verdict within the New York retrial would imply he wouldn’t must serve any time on prime of that LA sentence. As he waits for the present trial to make its means by means of the courts, he seems optimistic about Owens’s efforts on his behalf. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he informed the New York Post. “The woman is going to be a superstar, and I have been around stars.”
One of the best successes of the Me Too motion on the peak of its affect was not essentially the prison prosecution of accused sexual abusers, however its highly effective problem of myths round sexual abuse that had been pervasive for many years. To see Owens’s tens of millions of podcast subscribers and social media followers reply by and enormous favorably to those acquainted flimsy defenses reveals simply how a lot we appear to have regressed.
One of the best successes of the Me Too motion was not essentially the prison prosecution of accused sexual abusers, however its highly effective problem of myths round sexual abuse.
First, Owens incorrectly asserts that of the greater than 80 ladies who accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct, solely three ended up bringing prices in opposition to him. This, she says, proves that the remainder of Weinstein’s accusers have been liars, and that the proof in opposition to him is skinny. In truth, three ladies introduced prices in opposition to Weinstein in New York and 5 extra in Los Angeles. By most requirements, being legally charged with sexual assault in opposition to eight completely different ladies could be thought of quite a bit, though in Weinstein’s case, it does work out to round 10 p.c of his public accusers.
Sexual assault is notoriously troublesome to show past an affordable doubt, which is the usual of protection in a prison courtroom. Many of the ladies who accused Weinstein publicly did so years and even a long time after the very fact, a standard phenomenon amongst survivors of sexual assault, each due to the disgrace related to the assault and the issue of securing a conviction. In some instances, the authorized statute of limitations had closed by the point these survivors lastly went public.
The commonplace of proof in a prison courtroom is excessive for good motive: should you’re going to take somebody’s freedom away from them, you have to be completely sure that they dedicated a criminal offense. The eight instances introduced in opposition to Weinstein signify the eight instances that regulation enforcement was assured they might show to that commonplace.
The proven fact that the opposite 72 or so accusations in opposition to Weinstein by no means resulted in prison prices doesn’t imply that they’re all false. It doesn’t imply that they’re all true, both. It means they don’t meet the excessive requirements of a courtroom, and that’s it.
Owens’s second main argument is that Weinstein’s accusers continued to spend time with him and, in some instances, ship him flirtatious messages after they are saying he attacked them. She contends that they have been performing as “sugar babies,” participating in a quid professional quo relationship with Weinstein by which they traded sexual favors for his skilled help.
It is true that lots of the ladies who’ve accused Weinstein of sexual assault continued to take care of pleasant relationships after their assaults. This, too, is extraordinarily frequent amongst victims of sexual violence, the overwhelming majority of whom know their attackers properly. In the case of Weinstein and his accusers, Weinstein held important skilled energy over his alleged victims — and his fame as a vindictive actor left little doubt that he wouldn’t hesitate to make use of it. He torpedoed the careers of ladies who rejected his advances. That consists of Mira Sorvino, who stated she was compelled to cease performing in main studio movies after she turned him down (director Peter Jackson confirmed he determined to not rent her after Weinstein suggested him in opposition to it).
We additionally know that Weinstein’s machinations didn’t cease with skilled retaliation. As publication approached for the 2 bombshell information articles breaking the story of Weinstein’s decades-long sample of sexual assault, Weinstein employed personal safety businesses, together with former Mossad spies, to gather compromising info on the ladies who have been making ready to accuse them.
None of the data or context I’m laying out right here is new. All of those revelations have been mentioned within the press in nice element within the weeks and months after the Weinstein story first broke in October 2017, after which repeated once more over the course of his 2020 New York trial and his 2022 Los Angeles trial.
When Owens performs her “just asking questions” routine about Weinstein, she isn’t asking new questions.
That was one of many few advantages of utilizing Harvey Weinstein as a logo of the worst form of monster a sexual predator might probably be. It was reductive and slightly sensationalist, however on the very least, the general public’s fascination with Weinstein meant an opportunity to speak by means of a couple of all-too pervasive rape myths. It meant an opportunity to clarify why so many ladies hesitate to come back ahead and inform their tales, why so many ladies keep relationships with their attackers, and why it’s so onerous to get a conviction on a rape case. For a time, it appeared as if if the Me Too motion had achieved something exterior of some high-profile arrests, it was at the very least that it educated the general public.
When Owens performs her “just asking questions” routine about Weinstein, she isn’t asking new questions. She is asking very previous ones and performing as if they weren’t completely answered the primary time round. That she has been ready to take action efficiently with Weinstein and discover an viewers prepared and wanting to welcome her takes means issues might get quite a bit worse for all the opposite victims of sexual assault on the market: those whose attackers don’t have 80 public accusations in opposition to them; whose attackers are, in spite of everything, no Weinstein. The informational ecosystem she is constructing is only one signal that the features of Me Too are much more ephemeral than we had as soon as hoped.