Thread by @CCCBuryStEd

We won’t end abuse by simply demonising perpetrators.
We won’t help future victims by only focusing on the abuser.

We need to look at the climate in which abuse thrives.

We need to look at how society enables, minimises & looks the other way.
We also need to look at bystanders.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since hearing of the death of Kobe Bryant who was an exceptional basketball player.
He was also a man accused of rape.

Re-reading what was reported at the time, two things stand out that are difficult to ignore, especially since #MeToo.

Bryant claimed that strangulation during sex was his ‘thing’. He claimed there was consent.

More and more predatory men are using the ‘ Rough sex gone wrong’ defence and we can’t ignore how porn culture has normalised strangulation.

He also referred to another basketball player referencing how he “gives them money or buys them cars, he has already spent one million dollars.” to keep the girls quiet.

The classic ‘ pay them off’ strategy used by rich and powerful perpetrators.

This doesn’t happen without enablers, as we are beginning to understand with #HarveyWeinstein and #BrockTurner and so many other rich and powerful men or talented sportsmen who are revered, adored and whose position in power creates jobs.

The sense of entitlement that allows men in positions of power to behave in the way that they do and to expect it to be cleaned up afterwards, because of who they are, and because the people around them protect them and never hold them to account.

It’s about much more than those who perpetrate the acts.
We need to look at the culture that enables this.
A culture that looks away, minimises, conspires and allows perpetrators to thrive whilst silencing those who have been perpetrated against.

Society needs to change.