Jerks

My knee jerk response to any woman who says she's been harassed or abused is to believe her. Of course! Why would someone lie about something like this? It takes courage to speak out, to risk the slings and slut shaming of the Intertoobz – especially when you're calling out a powerful dude.

Stormy Daniels, Leigh Corfman, Weinstein and 45’s myriad accusers – they are all serious heroes.

And ME TOO! I know what it’s like – been there, suffered that.  I’m astoundingly grateful that, when harassment happened on the job and I went upstairs to complain to the big boys, I was believed and action was taken.

RESPECT, GET SUM!

There are, however, a few women whose allegations strike me as a bit suspect. I feel guilty as hell saying that BUT to disregard credible other side stories is reckless and all BAD feminist.

Leeann Tweedon, who took down Al Franken, is a faithful Republican and semi-regular on Trump pal Hannity’s little propaganda, smear and lie-fest taint show. She, on closer look, seemed less than genuine.

Litsa Dremousis too. She encouraged women to speak out about Sherman Alexie's bad behavior and that’s good but complicated in that, in her enthusiasm, she neglected to mention that she’s Alexie’s spurned ex. And, oh yeah, she was also a harasser. Disingenuous much?

Alexie’s response, like Franken's, was/is very good.

From the NPR write-up on Alexie's actions:

Ursu says some of the most popular kids book writers used the power of their celebrity to seduce women.
~~~snip~~~
"If you are an aspiring author," Ursu says, "and you go to a reading of someone who is famous and beloved and whose work you admire, and he suddenly takes an interest in you and your work, and he thinks you're special, and you start emailing, and he wants to mentor you — and then suddenly it turns out all he wanted to do is have sex with you.”

Coco in the front window with her bunny

I’ve always been desperately wary of powerful people, men and women both. Mebbe that’s just me  – I don’t trust easily (to say the very fucking least) and have a très reality based view of my talents (I’m good but I’m no sonic streamer). For me to imagine, fer instance, that someone like Martin Millar or Neil Gaiman might be particularly interested in my scribblings, maybe to the point of helping me get a foot in the book door, is a pretty fantasy. IF I met either gent and this fantasy became reality, mebbe my imagination would get the better of me and I'd be all wildly trusting (stop laughing – that could so, mebbe, happen!).

I am in NO bloody way blaming the trusting women AT ALL – NO!

It totally wicked blows to be in a position where you thought your dreams were coming true only to find that your hero has feet of leaded osmium. Why do we humans expect our our idols to be saints/less than the sum of their very human parts though?

Famous people get showered with a shit-ton of glowing attention. I imagine (never having been famous) it’s intoxicating and drunks are rarely on their best behavior. This is by no means a call to excuse or fluff off the damage they cause. Nope, not at all. I’m just singing the siren song of reality here.

Their stories are complicated and messy, as much about the power they felt he had over them as they are about sex. (source)

So, Alexie made some real shitty plays, behaved boorishly and just stone awful at times. He was seduced by his celebrity. He fucked up, owns it and has sincerely apologized. I’m not surprised that he did either – the awful acts and the good ones. Would he have apologized if his ex affair-mate hadn’t outed him? Maybe. Mebbe not. He’s still one of my fave authors and I will contunue to buy his books.

All in all, we humans are a disappointing race. I like cats better...but you knew that.