I’m listening to an audiobook production of “Sandman” by Neil Gaiman.
I was especially excited about pressing play on this particular audiobook. “Sandman” is a graphic novel — a format I have difficulty reading. My visual skills are weak at best, so when I try to read a graphic novel or comic book, I get lost in the images and have difficulty following the plot.
Dumb, I know, but true.
Then Clara noticed I was listening to it and asked, “Have you heard the news about Neil Gaiman?”
I had not.
Ten minutes later, I learned that five women had publicly accused the author of sexual assault and abuse. Gaiman has strongly denied all allegations, asserting that any sexual interactions were consensual.
So maybe Gaiman is innocent. Having been arrested, jailed, indicted, and tried for a crime I did not commit, I believe very much in “innocent until proven guilty,” but five women?
All unrelated to one another?
My first thought::
When will this end? How many authors, musicians, filmmakers, actors, comedians, politicians, entrepreneurs, and the like are going to be revealed as alleged — and sometimes convicted — sexual predators?
Then I bemoaned how often a beloved song, book, movie, and TV show has been marred by these monsters.
Then this occurred to me:
I’m complaining that a book I’m enjoying might be sullied by sexual assault allegations, but what if I were a woman living in a world filled with sexual predators? Would the tarnished book or song or movie be my primary complaint or concern?
I may be disgusted and horrified by the number of men credibly accused and convicted of rape and sexual assault since the beginning of the “Me too” movement, but I’ve never felt personally threatened by these small, pathetic, amoral monsters and the multitude of men like them.
I’ve never needed someone to walk me to my car at night.
I’ve never been worried about being sexually assaulted by someone bigger and stronger than me.
I rarely look at another person and think they can or will hurt me.
But I would almost certainly see the world differently if I were a woman. Though violent female criminals also exist, I’m never worried about being overpowered and hurt by a violent woman, and more importantly, the ratio of male-to-female perpetrators of violence is approximately a kabillion to one.
Almost all of the monsters are men. Serial killers, sexual predators, murderers, rapists, pedophile priests… almost always male.
The President-elect is a self-described sexual predator who was found liable for sexual abuse by a jury of his peers.
Matt Gaetz, a former Congressman and recent nominee for attorney general by the self-described sexual predator, allegedly had sex with two minors — statutory rape — and only withdrew his name from consideration for that high office when more allegations were reportedly coming.
Yet that monster still appears regularly on conservative news outlets.
Harvey Weinstein, R Kelly, Bill Cosby, Matt Lauer, Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Sean Combs, Jeffrey Epstein, Vince McMahon, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh—the list goes on and on.
All have been either credibly accused or convicted of sexual harassment, sexual assault, or rape.
And it happens in every corner of the world. More than a third of women report being sexually harassed in the workplace. I’ve personally assisted women who were victimized by sexual harassment in the workplace.
In every case, the perpetrator was a man.
Almost 90% of the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, were men.
Men commit 80% of all violent crimes and 95% of domestic violence.
Nearly 99% of the perpetrators of rape and sexual assault are male.
Women essentially move through a world filled with violent sexual predators, probably wondering which men are good, decent human beings and which ones are capable of horrific violence.
Just like that, in an instant, my distress over Neil Gaiman and the implications of his alleged crimes on my perception of his graphic novel seemed exceptionally absurd, tone-deaf, and stupid.
