Sexual assault is a media issue of the moment. . From Parliament Hill to south of the border.
Last week a spokesperson for an organization declared that anyone attending a Cosby show would be complicit in sexual assault.
It was a tipping point.
In this scenario, Bill Cosby looks like the victim to me
Antonio Zerbiasis and Sheila Copps had almost identical stories to fuel the fire from experience when both were very young .
Antonio was a guest on the Agenda on TVO with Steve Paikin. Ms Copps interviewed on Skype from Mexico with Peter Mansbridge on CBC.
Both were raped as teenagers. Never told anyone. There was shame. They felt at fault. They had been stupid.
They were young and stupid and at least shared the responsibility.
Any time a female goes to a hotel room with a man,he cannot be blamed entirely for picking up the wrong signal.
He thinks he got lucky.
Sex is not the same to a man. Since the advent of birth control, I'm not sure it's the same to a woman either.
One thing for sure, future anthropologists will have a hell of a time pinning down societal attitudes
about sex in the last fifty years of history.
Any time a female goes to a hotel room with a man,he cannot be blamed entirely for picking up the wrong signal.
He thinks he got lucky.
Sex is not the same to a man. Since the advent of birth control, I'm not sure it's the same to a woman either.
One thing for sure, future anthropologists will have a hell of a time pinning down societal attitudes
about sex in the last fifty years of history.
Sheila and Antonio are of an age. Each had a single experience to share. They hadn't paid attention
to parental advice, hence feelings of stupidity. They had to learn from experience. They knew they should have known better. If they were old enough to be out on their own, they were certainly old enough to take care of themselves.
There's only so far a parent can go.
Yesterday the media featured a feminist lawyer of repute flanked by two weeping women of the same vintage as Sheila and Antonio.
to parental advice, hence feelings of stupidity. They had to learn from experience. They knew they should have known better. If they were old enough to be out on their own, they were certainly old enough to take care of themselves.
There's only so far a parent can go.
Yesterday the media featured a feminist lawyer of repute flanked by two weeping women of the same vintage as Sheila and Antonio.
One claimed to have had an affair with Cosby during which he put drugs in her coffee once and had sex with her She was so distressed by the memory she could barely control her emotions on camera.
The lawyer called for Cosby to waive the statute of limitations to allow himself to be prosecuted
and set aside a hundred million dollars to compensate his victims in the event he would be found guilty.
Ah !!!! There it is, I thought. The cornucopia . The axis upon which the world spins.
If Bill Cosby and his wife had not personally managed their business affairs without the help of a
manager. If after a successful career, he had been robbed blind like so many of his peers, was broke and homeless, would he now be accused of dragging a teenager by the hair to a Bunny Club and forcing her to do unspeakable Clintonesque things to his person ?
Do we think we know the definitive answer to that question?
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21 comments:
I saw that so-called press conference with the celebrity lawyer. It is hard to imagine any lawyer suggesting that Mr Cosby set aside the American statute of limitations and allow himself to be sued. At his stage it look sadly like a kids' game of pile-on. There is no way to prove or disprove the accusations.
A perpetrator is a "victim"?1! You BLAME the real, true victims?! It's not just in politics and town affairs that you're mired in the past. Your opinions and sensibilities on this issue aren't worthy of a person - never mind a woman - living in the 21st-century.
You got that one right. Wars are the same. It's never about religion or the oppressed. It's always about the money. Our own justice system is the same. It’s unfortunate but true.
13:51- Oh my, haven’t you just opened yourself up to a few comments.
12:51
Not worthy of a person? Grow up and educate yourself about women in the 21st century before you start flapping your gums. As a women you ignorance is embarrassing.
14:35 - Not as many as the post should generate in condemnation.
Rather than insults and snark, 14:41, please educate us about women in the 21st-century.
14:57
Pray tell, who would you condemn ?
The accused, the accusers, the media, the legal system in the US, ?
I sure hope you are not going to blame or condemn anyone who might disagree with your stance on unprovable charges in another country. It is comment, period.
Is the child bully of today the adult predator/rapist of tomorrow?
While most sexual attackers are men, women have been known to indulge.
What satisfaction does it give to either a woman or a man to come forward 20, 30 or 40 years after an event and climb on the bandwagon? These people must really be in need of some powerful inner sense of self-gratification.
Do the professionals in the field know what causes a child or an adult to bully or rape? Can this be seen in the sub-conscious before a conscious act occurs?
I think these acts of physical violence should be punished at the time, or shortly after the time, they occur.
Neutering might be a solution.
13:51- Who's the perpetrator? And who is the victim? Were you there?....Didn't think so. And what exactly do you know about politics and town affairs for that matter? You are clueless to Evelyn’s experiences in life.
No, 15:39, none of those. The reference was to the content of the post deeming a perpetrator to be a victim, while blaming the actual victims. That type of dinosaur thinking is worthy of condemnation.
16:24
Your type of condemnation is worse.
It is, 16:24? How so?
Why all the talk about condemnation ?
In the Cosby case, there is no evidence on which to base a judgement. Which make the entire thing bizarre and frightening.
16:24
Don't you mean the " accused perpetrator "?
So many people making money from the alleged perpetrators and alleged victims, its sickening.
No, I don't, 19:50. He made an out-of-court payment in 2005 stemming from one case - would an innocent man do that?
The heading for this post is from the song "Blowin' in the Wind" written in 1962 by Bob Dylan.
It is more an anti-war song than anything, although the United States was not at that time involved in Viet Nam, with the exception of a few hundred observers and advisors. That would quickly change and within ten years the United States would be mired in a losing guerrilla war with more than half a million troops on the ground and 55,000 dead. Viet Nam would drive Lyndon Johnson from another run at the presidency.
But in the late 1950's there was another war being waged in the country, in the South. On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to obey the white bus driver to surrender her seat, in the coloured section, to a white person. This incident escalated into what became the civil rights movement in the United States, and Parks was later hailed by that country's Congress as "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement." Parks worked with all the civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King, Jr.
She was the first woman and second non-government person to lie in honour at the Capital Rotunda following her death.
During the 1960's the hippies and the folk-singers came into being, and on little Yorkville Avenue, in Toronto, a number of coffee-houses came into being featuring the singing of Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Ian and Sylvia, Gordon Lightfoot and Janis Joplin. All of these singers are by now virtual memories and the old houses in which they sang have given way to luxury condominiums with multi-million dollar penthouses.
It's hard to look back at this monumental decade and compare it with our last ten-year span. It's hard to believe that the federal Health Minister knew nothing about Canada's thalidomide victims until a couple of weeks ago. And that the aging, and possibly mindless, Minister of Veteran's Affairs was unaware of the plight of our most recent veterans, who suffer daily physical and emotional pain as a result of their service to their country.
The only war in which we are presently engaged is via half a dozen almost 50 year-old fighter jets. But we have to be on board.
The political leadership in this country is becoming more disgraceful with each passing moment. But is there a viable alternative?
21:51- unfortunately.... no. None what so ever.
22:05
Maybe we need a good old-fashioned revolution.
But who is going to be on the bus?
22:31-Our neighbors to the south are closer to one than we are, but we're not that far behind.
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