Tell a particular set of lies about women (or any other group) for centuries and it becomes the status quo. Research shows that these lies and mythologies become so familiar they are more comfortable than the truth. Our brains are wired to look for short cuts. Other women say he’s OK? Well then, she must be lying.
As Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey reveal in their book, “She Said,” about their investigative reporting of Harvey Weinstein, attorney Lisa Bloom advised Weinstein to reveal his victim’s weaknesses early. Publish a few big articles about her lies she suggested. Or her mental instability and contradictions. Discrediting her will be cake. In a memo, from Bloom to Weinstein: You should be the hero of the story, not the villain. This is very doable.
Weinstein’s eventual conviction does not disprove this as a winning strategy. It only proves that upending a centuries-old story is only possible when victims swarm from the woodwork like ghosts. One voice is not considered to be enough. Look at Scheherazade. Saving her own life was a monumental task, but freedom was not her reward. Instead, she traded death for marriage to a monarch who had killed one thousand women before her. The story of Scheherazade taking down the monarch does not exist. Call women emotional, hysterical, unstable, and irrational for centuries and you’ll find that unpeeling the lies from history causes history to come off in chunks, too. Your hands will never be large enough to hold the facade as it crumbles.