Can we acknowledge this for once, instead of mindlessly furthering the myth that women are so capricious and fundamentally terrible, we'll gladly ruin an innocent man's life, working together or separately? Can we pause to consider the deeply offensive implication that such behavior sounds more like something the average woman might do than something a desperate man would dream up to deflect attention from himself? Accusing someone of a crime he didn't commit is not something a person with a conscience does for any reason, let alone some petty personal grievance. So if you believe it's something a woman might just do after any given sexual encounter, for the flimsiest of reasons, you pretty much believe that women, as a class, are prone to sociopathy.
And yet, the rush of Ghomeshi supporters willing to propagate this ludicrous—not impossible! But ludicrous!—narrative on social media feels awfully familiar. It seems that every time a male celebrity is accused of rape or sexual assault, people eagerly latch onto any bonkers theory that might explain away the allegations, while ignoring the simplest explanation: They're probably true.
We'd much rather think, for instance, that the victims are seeking money or fame, not justice. The woman Mike Tyson was convicted of raping—like one of the ones who reported being raped by Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, and the victims of former BBC broadcaster Stuart Hall, and the woman who reported that two New York Police officers assaulted her, and a woman who accused college football star Jameis Winston of raping her—was repeatedly called a gold digger. But the stereotype of the lying bitch looking for a payday is as ridiculous as it is pernicious. Putting yourself through the public scrutiny and inevitable harassment that follows accusing a beloved figure of rape, on the off chance that it might lead to a hefty settlement, is really not a super-effective get-rich-quick scheme. Why do we so easily believe that's the "real story" behind reports of famous men committing sexual violence?
We were just as inexplicably quick to believe that Roman Polanski's 13-year-old victim "looked older" in the 46-year-old director's eyes. Football coach Jerry Sandusky was engaging in typical athletic "horseplay," not molesting boys in the showers. Dominique Strauss-Kahn thought the woman wearing a hotel maid uniform, and identifying herself as a hotel maid, was a prostitute. Cee Lo Green slipped a woman a mickey, sure, but the sex was consensual. Bill Cosby's been accused of sex crimes, frequently involving drugged victims, no fewer than 13 times, but it can't possibly be true!
It's difficult to choose among the many absurd things we've been asked to believe about Woody Allen in the wake of his daughter Dylan Farrow's reminder that yes, she really did report that he molested her when she was 7 years old, and yes, she will reaffirm that report today, even if the rest of us forgot about it in the intervening 20 years. Allen's documentarian, Robert B. Weide, gave us loads of options for Most Absurd Explanation when he wrote a fawning defense of his friend in The Daily Beast.
- See more at:
http://www.damemagazine.com/2014/10/28/hey-jian-ghomeshi-i-call-bs#sthash.kPKW8tzh.QXtHlzxd.dpuf
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