Why powerful men get away with rape.

Ashley Judd (left), Harvey Weinstein (centre), Rose McGowan (right)

 

“I came of age in the 60’s and 70’s, when all the rules about behaviour and workplaces were different. That was the culture then.”

In the opening paragraph of Harvey Weinstein’s statement, shortly after the NYT article’s revelations of sexual misconduct, Weinstein made it clear he hoped to gain some traction in the midst of his spiralling personal crisis by essentially treating everyone like complete idiots, trying to distract everyone’s attention from the real issue by ignoring the fact that each of the women who have made an accusation against him did not consent to his forceful, bullying appeals for sex.

Forcing yourself into a woman's crotch when she resists and performing cunnilingus does not make you a libertine. Neither does holding a woman's head and pushing her mouth on to your penis. Two accusations that have been reported recently.

Weinstein is suggesting that the 60's & 70's were somehow inexplicably unique in creating a generation of men who thought psychological barriers and prudery could simply be ignored and have continued to behave accordingly without the ability to recognise sexual harassment and sexual assault as wrong.

To Weinstein’s way of thinking it’s as though the social conditioning of his formative years unwittingly left him a helpless victim with a lifelong learning disability that prevented him from regulating his behaviour.

The situation embodied by Harvey Weinstein and his sexual predation of vulnerable young women is not unique to any one epoch or generation. It has been going on throughout civilization's entire history. Rape has a very long backstory and it has played an important role in patriarchy throughout antiquity, up until the present day.

Rape is first and foremost an activity where a man exercises his power over the women he is attacking. It is much more than physical in nature. Almost without exception it happens in an institutional setting which means his authority and standing stacks the deck so firmly in his favour it is next to impossible for a woman to even speak up, let alone expect she can seek redress for her grievance.

And, of course, rape accusations also have a mountain of cultural baggage attached to them.

So, he keeps doing it with impunity. The only modern context Harvey Weinstein’s behaviour should be seen in is modern criminal behaviour.

If you’re a feminist your mission is not chasing after fleeting pieces of existential contentment in and of themselves, your targets are the institutional power imbalances that develop between men and women and your aim is to subvert them and relegate the discussion of patriarchy to college history departments.