And so, soon after Leigh Corfman came forward to share her alleged experience with Moore, when she was a girl of 14-the clock ticks predictably- a rumor that was entirely unfounded began spreading: The Washington Post, it went, had paid the women to speak on the record. This, in turn, is in many cases used as a weapon against the victims. And of course they didn’t: Harassment and assault, by their nature, often take place in the shadows, away from others, in intimate places that are hidden and walled and secret. They did not-save for a yearbook signature that Moore’s defenders have suggested could be fraudulent-have photographic evidence. senatorial candidate from Alabama, after multiple women came forward to say that he had preyed upon them as teenagers. The Franken revelation came, as it happened, after a week of discussion about Roy Moore, the U.S. Will this be the moment that we- we as a culture, we as a collective-finally start taking women at their word? That makes the #MeToo moment not only about justice-and about women being required, once again, to insist on their own humanity-but also about something both simpler and more fraught: belief itself. “Pics or it didn’t happen,” as they say well, here’s the pic. There are so many women, telling such similar stories. But one of the most significant elements of #MeToo as a phenomenon is the fact that it has served, effectively, as its own kind of photograph, its own kind of receipt. There have been, after all, other such moments. It remains to be seen whether the #MeToo moment-the “Weinstein Moment,” it is also called, in ironic commemoration of the man whose alleged actions led to the flinging open of the floodgates-will prove to be a pivotal one in the sweeping context of American cultural history. Because of that, members of the public had no other choice but to do the thing that so many people, for so long, have been extremely hesitant to do: Take her at her word. This was not a case of her word against his, he said against she said Tweeden had, via that photo of Franken groping and grinning, the receipts. Tweeden, however, had another reason not to fear coming forward: She had, unlike so many other victims of harassment, hard evidence. It’s a sentiment that has been steadily spreading, in recent weeks, among those who have been sexually harassed and preyed upon-not among all of them, certainly, but among many more than before. I wanted to shout my story to the world with a megaphone to anyone who would listen, but even as angry as I was, I was worried about the potential backlash and damage going public might have on my career as a broadcaster.īut that was then, this is now. I told my husband everything that happened and showed him the picture. How dare anyone grab my breasts like this and think it’s funny?
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