Attorney Gloria Allred, surrounded by Cosby accusers and their supporters after the guilty verdict. EPA-EFE/Tracie Van Auken

So much has happened it is easy to forget the video that circulated on social media of comedian Hannibal Buress calling out Bill Cosby in his stand-up routine: “Yeah, but you rape women, Bill Cosby, so turn the crazy down a couple notches …” he said in October 2014. Over the years, Buress has criticised Cosby, but it wasn’t until the video of him went viral that things began to change.

Buress importantly brought attention to Cosby – but he is not the reason for the changing media coverage and ultimately Cosby’s conviction. It’s actually all the brave women who have come forward that have forced the news and entertainment industries to pay attention.

Shortly after the Buress video went viral, actress Barbara Bowman frustratedly asked in The Washington Post: “Why did it take 30 years for people to believe my story?”, pointing to the double standards of taking men seriously but not women. Even so, it is what the 60-plus women who have come forward against Cosby have faced that has finally forced the public and media outlets to care about the systemic sexual violence perpetrated by some powerful men like him.

Remember when CNN host Don Lemon asked one Cosby accuser Joan Tarshis why she didn’t just bite Cosby’s penis? Well he doesn’t ask questions like that anymore. Or when Canadian basketball star Andrea Constand originally took Cosby to court in 2005 and no one paid attention? Well the jury certainly paid attention to Costand this time around. Or when supermodel Janice Dickinson went on The Howard Stern Show in 2006 and only hinted about Cosby’s behaviour because she was too afraid of being sued to say more? She has now spoken publicly to many news outlets and even testified in this last fateful trial.
Cosby leaving court after the guilty verdict. EPA-EFE/Tracie Van Auken

But even with the improvements, news media still need to do better when it comes to interviewing and profiling women who come forward. Rape culture that is so common in societies, still plays out in news coverage. Specifically, women who come forward are doubted and disparaged. And powerful people who question, insult, and dismiss accusers coming forward are given ample attention in the coverage.

When the Access Hollywood tape was released, featuring Donald Trump‘s unsavoury comments about grabbing women by the pussy, Trump was given carte blanche to call the women coming forward to accuse him of harassment liars and ugly and threaten to sue them. The women who accused Trump on the other hand, have always been given minimal exposure. Actor Daman Wayans famously stated that some of the women accusing Cosby were “un-rape-able”. Trump, of course, subsequently won the 2016 presidential election.

Meanwhile Fox presenter Bill O’Reilly, sacked from Fox News amid allegations of sexual harassment – said for years that he was merely a target for opportunistic women, with little push back. The examples go on.
Proving credible

Consequently, when interviewed, accusers/survivors are often forced to “prove” themselves rather than just tell their story. Or worse, are asked – Like Lemon did to Tarshis – why didn’t they just prevent this from happening? They have to justify their previous actions and even their character traits, which research shows does not determine whether or not a woman is assaulted.

When the Cosby story broke three and a half years ago, former co-star Phylicia Rashad notably said “… this was not about the women. This is about something else. This is about the obliteration of legacy”. Jerry Seinfeld said something similar about the value of Cosby’s body of work – although to be fair he later went back on those comments.

But in the end, the women in this case finally (and rightfully) made it about them. News coverage reflected this – even if they were 30 years late. Moving forward the biggest challenge will be making this the norm and not just the exception.

Read more: It takes guts and hard work to expose a scandal like that of Harvey Weinstein – but it’s just the start

News coverage of the #MeToo movement that began in the wake of Harvey Weinstein’s demise, has often played devil’s advocate, asking (and sometimes emphatically stating) it has gone too far. This is without considering the international systemic problem of physical and sexual violence against women. Or the relatively short time the movement has existed as opposed to centuries of gender inequality. More context is needed when we read the news.

Also, more attention must be paid to surviving sexual abuse and misconduct, rather than the triumphant comeback stories that are now in the works for accused harassers, such as the disgraced CBS anchor Charlie Rose and former Today host Matt Lauer.

While recent news coverage has finally embraced reporting on sexual abuse allegations, there is still far to go before the issue itself and the problematic way we discuss all forms of violence against women is eradicated. Luckily, this didn’t deter the brave women who helped bring Cosby to justice.

Lindsey Blumell, Lecturer in Journalism, City, University of London

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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“You can’t clap with just one hand,” explains a Haryana curmudgeon, in a video about the Indian state’s rather pervasive rape culture. But, hear the bugger out: Does he not have a point?

Hear the messenger out: Consider, first, biology. If we go far back enough in time, when physical strength was crucial to determining the dynamics of relationships, thousands of years of evolution had made it so that sex was a method by which a man could spread his “seed.”

In this regard, for a man to be successful, what he would require, more so than anything, would be to have sex with as many women as possible so that his genes found homes in the wombs of a diverse array of women, providing them better chances for continued generational survival.

And since women were not always willing to provide said home for their spermatozoa, sometimes, rape was merely another survival tool, and perhaps to a great extent, necessary.

And since women, as we all know, are biologically to some extent hardwired to attract the male (and subtly and coquettishly do a few things to heighten that attraction), it is only a biological imperative for men to give in.

And, to further complicate matters, we all know that women are not always clear about what they want, as various instances of attraction to dominant male figures have shown throughout history.

What we subsequently have done is provide societal context for these rather primitive acts for posterity. In fact, some of these societal inventions serve to protect women as opposed to harm them.

Cover up, so that you are not raped. Get married, so that you and your children are provided for. Stay indoors, so that other men may not harass and assault you.

Without the benevolence of those in power, the oppressed could never find a voice. And in the case of men and women, the situation is no different.

It is thanks to men, and the power they wield, the generosity with which they have decided to treat women, placing them up on a pedestal as opposed to a gutter, that women have been allowed the grace and dignity biology felt they did not deserve.
 

Is that what we want? A generation of silent rapists lurking in the alley?

Where the fault lies
The Asif Mahtabs of this world have you believe that this is the root cause of rape — and there are a lot of Asif Mahtabs in the world, and in our country.

For those who do not know Asif Mahtab, his 15 minutes of fame came about as a result of a Facebook post highlighting the various “scientific” reasons behind sexual harassment and assault.

Some gems include men’s attraction to “symmetry” and how lips and nails turn red during orgasm because of excessive bloodflow. I encourage independently reading his entire post for a more detailed understanding of his mind-set.

These aren’t the root causes of rape, but represent some of the root excuses for the perpetuation of rape culture. While rape culture I personally find has expanded to include perhaps too many mere happenstances within the penumbra of societal relations, I would like to focus on the absolute basics: Why people think rape has two criminals (the rapist and the raped) and, sometimes, only one (the raped).

While I do not think that the monsterization of rapists is helpful in the fight against the continued sexual assault carried out on women, the biological defense which some utilize does nothing to humanize their belief systems.

The very reason human beings are special (I do not mean better) amongst all animals is because we have the self-awareness and the capability to fight our basest urges, and through social evolution have, to a great extent, eradicated them altogether.

For any individual to hold up biology as an excusable defense against the continuation of rape is hypocritical, for one presumes he is not a pure anarchist who walks around naked in the streets and eats raw meat which he has hunted and gathered from the woods next to his cave.

Whether or not this analogy holds up, of this you be the judge: Consider how we must fight terrorism. It is not enough that we carry out raid after raid, but that we engage with communities which show young people that violence is not the answer.

For this, our approach must be the same. Not only must we incorporate role models into our schooling who teach us to respect gender and sex and their complicated multifaceted narratives, but also engage in public debate which first acknowledges the arguments of various adults in our society first.

Merely painting them as outcasts ensures their continued existence in the shadows.

The next such individual, having seen the way we have ostracized, will be less likely to air his bigoted views, thereby ensuring the perpetuity of his mind-set as a rape apologist.

Is that what we want? A generation of silent rapists lurking in the alley? Because, if you look around, you’ll find we’re already there.

SN Rasul is an Editorial Assistant in the Dhaka Tribune. Follow him @snrasul.

Courtesy: Dhaka Tribune

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