#MeToo ist vorbei, wenn wir nicht auf „unvollkommene Opfer“ wie Amber Heard hören“

Ein Artikel im Guardian ruft die Frauen zur Ordnung:

The backlash to the #MeToo movement was always coming. We know this because a backlash has followed every single step forward feminists have ever made. This backlash was always going to be big, too. Not only did #MeToo threaten a status quo that props up powerful men, it threatened these men personally, and – as it seemed to some – with reckless caprice.

“If somebody can be brought down by accusations like this,” a White House lawyer said shortly after Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against Brett Kavanaugh were made public, “then you, me, every man certainly should be worried.”

Da sieht man ein sehr interessantes Denken, welches einen Geschlechterkampf annimmt, Männer gegen Frauen, und Männer sind dabei vermutlich die Aggressoren und Frauen die berechtigten Freiheitskämpfer. Anders ist jedenfalls das Bild des Backlashs hier wohl nicht verständlich.

Der Grund, warum bei den Anschuldigungen gegen Kavanaugh gesagt wurde, dass es jeden Treffen kann, war, dass die Anschuldigungen so schlecht belegt waren und irgendwie mal irgendwer gesehen wurde oder irgendwer gehört hat, dass da was gewesen sein soll. Es ist verständlich, wenn man da besorgt ist.

It wasn’t just men who were worried. The idea that systems that previously treated only women, minorities and lower-class men unfairly might be capable of doing the same to high-status men was deeply unsettling to everyone.

After all, when a man is treated badly it lands with a double sense of burning injustice. Women’s stories of woe are so common that they can leave us comparatively unfazed. We feel bad, but we already know women are treated unfairly. It is priced in. “[Women’s stories were] all the same story, which is not to say it wasn’t important. But it was boring,” writes Taffy Brodesser-Akner in her novel Fleishman Is in Trouble. “The first time I interviewed a man, I understood we were talking about something more like the soul.” When something bad happens to a powerful man, it has not happened to a statistic. It has happened to a human soul.

Ich würde ihr eine Eins für Opferdenken geben. Sie kommentiert einen Prozess, in dem es unter anderem darum ging, dass die Beklagte zu dem Kläger gesagt hatte, dass es gar nichts bringen würde, wenn er von Gewalt gegen ihn berichten würde, weil ihm keiner glauben würde, weil er ein Mann ist und sie stellt darauf ab, dass Männer mehr Aufmerksamkeit bekommen.

In der Tat gibt es mehr Geschichten über Frauen und insofern mag der Mann ungewöhnlicher sein, aber das damit zu begründen, dass man Ungerechtigkeiten gegen Männer besonders ernst nimmt ist schon angesichts der Realität männlicher Opfer eher dreist.

 Female accusers are still routinely treated as if they are lying, both by the public and the courts

For these reasons, #MeToo struck many men – and women – as deeply unfair. Yet it was merely an attempt to correct a bias that still exists. Female accusers are still routinely treated as if they are lying, both by the public and the courts – more so than other alleged victims of crime. It took the testimony of more than a hundred women to bring down Harvey Weinstein. Brett Kavanaugh was not brought down.

Kavanaugh hatte nach allem, was wir wissen auch nichts gemacht. Und bei Weinstein dürfte es auch eher daran gelegen haben, dass viele Frauen eben ihre Anschuldigungen nicht publik gemacht haben bzw sich ernst in der Gruppe getraut haben, gegen ihn vorzugehen.

Und natürlich muss in einem Strafverfahren auch die Unschuldsvermutung gelten. Das ist ein sehr sehr wesentliches Element eines Rechtsstaates

The public reaction to the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial is what a #MeToo backlash looks like. Here are the facts of the case. Depp is suing Heard for defamation after she described herself in a 2018 article that didn’t mention him as a “public figure representing domestic abuse”. Depp says he is innocent of abuse and her statement amounts to lying. On his side are two facts that seem clear. Heard promised to donate her entire divorce settlement to charity, and didn’t. There is a recording in which she admits to hitting Depp.

Aus dem Wikipediaartikel zum Verfahren:

A settlement was reached in August 2016, and the divorce was finalized in January 2017.[15] Heard withdrew the restraining order, and she and Depp released a joint statement stating that their „relationship was intensely passionate and periodically volatile, but always bound by love. Neither party has made false accusations for financial gain. There was never any intent of physical or emotional harm.“[7]

Depp paid Heard a settlement of US$7 million, which she pledged to donate to the American Civil Liberties Union and the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.[16][17] The settlement also included a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) preventing either party from discussing their relationship publicly.[18]

(…)
On April 12, 2022, lawyers Benjamin G. Chew and Camille Vasquez made opening statements on behalf of Depp.[40][41] They accused Heard of making up domestic abuse accusations about Depp to further her career, with Chew also stating that Heard made the accusations because Depp had asked for a divorce.[38] They argued that while Heard’s 2018 op-ed did not mention Depp, it was clear by implication that it referred to him.[29] Chew argued that Heard’s writing in that article („two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse“) was a reference to her May 2016 restraining order request, in which she claimed that Depp had physically abused her.[29] Chew discussed Heard appearing in public with a bruised face on May 27, 2016, accusing her of staging the injury, citing that Depp had not met her since May 21, 2016, and witnesses did not see her with the injury immediately after May 21, 2016.[29] Depp’s lawyers described Heard as giving the „performance of her life“ and a liar, „obsessed“ with her image.[42]

Also eine Verschwiegenheitsvereinbarung, der ein Artikel von ihr folgte in der sie sich als Opfer von häuslicher Gewalt darstellt, wobei die Vorfälle gelogen sein sollen.

On Heard’s side is the following evidence. Depp admits to head-butting his ex-wife (by accident), and there are texts from his assistant alleging he kicked Heard. There are texts from Depp to Paul Bettany saying he wanted to kill Heard and rape “her burnt corpse”. There is a recording of Depp shouting at Heard for speaking in an “authoritative” way to him.

„Head Butting by Accident“ wäre allenfalls eine fahrlässige Körperverletzung und was er anderen über sie schreibt hat dann auch wieder wenig mit Bedrohungen gegen sie zu tun.

She was awarded a domestic violence restraining order in 2016. In 2018 Depp sued the Sun newspaper for libel after it called him “a wife beater”. He lost the case after the judge found 12 of 14 alleged incidents of Depp’s abuse of Heard to be true.

Sie fanden die Berichterstattung über die Vorfälle nicht falsch, wenn ich mich richtig erinnere.

The idea that Heard is a manipulator, a fantasist and an abuser herself has caught fire across all social media

The court will decide whether or not Heard is a liar. But the idea that Heard is a manipulator, a fantasist and an abuser herself has caught fire across all social media, and some more traditional outlets. Every sexist trope ever used to humiliate and discredit female accusers has been deployed against her at vast scale. Re-enacting her testimony of rape and abuse has become a game on TikTok. She has been mocked by Saturday Night Live, and by Chris Rock (“Believe all women, except Amber Heard”) and ’N Sync’s Lance Bass.

„Believe all women“ macht bereits keinen Sinn, warum sollte ihre Seite unhinterfragbar sein? Und gerade wenn es so wäre würde dies ja noch mehr zu Mißbrauch einladen und den Satz noch gefährlicher machen.

Heard’s tormentors, many of them young women, do not seem to see themselves as anti-feminist. They believe women, of course – just not this one.

Wie können sie nur einer bestimmten Frau nicht glauben?? Insbesondere warum sollte man ihr alles glauben? Und warum soll es nicht in einer toxischen Beziehung die Möglichkeit geben, dass evtl beide Täter zu einem gewissen Grad sind-

It is not they who are damaging #MeToo, it is Heard – by virtue of being an imperfect victim.

Da ist die Idee wieder, dass Frauen perfekt sein müssen, Männer aber nicht, und das sie sonst keine Chance haben. Man könnte das Gegenteil argumentieren: Nur wenn wirklich Beweise bzw erkennbare Fragezeichen bei bestimmten Sachverhalten vorhanden sind hat der Mann überhaupt eine Chance.

They perhaps forget that the project of #MeToo – the whole point – was to help imperfect victims. Those who were wearing the wrong thing, or were drunk, or were promiscuous, or loved their perpetrator, or had previously broken the law, or had lied before, or had a bad character, or seemed “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty”, as David Brock once memorably described Anita Hill, who testified during Clarence Thomas’s US supreme court confirmation hearings in 1991. In fact, perfect victims have never needed feminism, partly because they barely exist.

Wäre interessant was sie eigentlich will? Keine Unschuldsvermutung mehr? Oder nur die geschlossene Einigkeit der Frauen hinter dem Opfer per Geschlecht? Eine Form der Bedingungslosen Solidarität mit Frauen, ganz egal was man für Zweifel haben könnte?

Whether or not Heard’s accusers fully realise it then, setting up “bad” victims in opposition to “genuine” ones is a very effective method of unpicking #MeToo. It is only the rare misogynist who outright admits they don’t believe women. Their objection has always been just to this one bitch, who is lying.

Also „wenn ihr bei auch nur einer Frau Zweifel habt, dann zerstört ihr#metoo und damit sind Frauen quasi Freiwild, weil man den Frauenhassern zuarbeitet“

#MeToo (the clue’s in the name) attempted to combat this by linking experiences – all those bitches who weren’t believed – so we could see the pattern. In fact, you could say the whole project of feminism is about taking bad things that happened to women, which they thought only happened to them, or were their fault, and calling them by one name. Divide us back into unlinked individuals who might be lying, and the movement is lost.

#MeToo is often framed as having uncovered truths about the world – its success was because women “explained really clearly” what was going on. No. People already knew what was going on. #MeToo worked for the reason any feminist movement works: strength in numbers. It is a political movement pushing against incredibly strong forces in the other direction. There’s no reason to think its work cannot be rolled back.

Letztendlich macht sie ein Dammbruchargument oder slippery slope Argument. „Wenn wir einer Frau nicht glauben, sei sie auch noch so angreifbar, so wird man keiner Frau mehr glauben bzw bei jeder Frau sagen, dass sie nur eine von den schlechten Frauen, denen man nicht glauben muss, ist“.