I saw you do it with the high school jocks. I saw you do it with the popular guys. You did it with the professional athletes, college athletes, famous men and rich men in power. I saw you do it with Bill Cosby and I’m watching many of you do it with Donald Trump. You do it for your husbands and for the husbands of your closest friends.
The sad part is you don’t even know you do it. You take each case as it comes and apply the very same excuses to each and every one, yet never realize you’re repeating a pattern. Not once do you recognize that, time and time again, you excuse the actions of men, you believe their rendition of events, you come to their rescue and vehemently defend them . . . by savagely attacking the women. You do this when there is only one accuser and you do it when there are many accusers.
Time and time again . . . you blame the women.
Time and time again . . . you doubt the women.
Time and time again . . . you excuse the men.
You say, “Boys will be boys—he just got carried away. It wasn’t rape.”
“It was just locker room talk—all guys talk like that. It doesn’t mean anything and it doesn’t prove he did anything.”
“He’s the captain of the football team, you can’t accuse him. You’ll ruin his life.”
“He was drunk.”
“He was joking.”
“You should be flattered that he grabbed your butt—I wish he would grab mine!”
“Oh, come on. You expect us to believe that he pinned you against the wall—with his wife in the next room? That’s ridiculous.”
Sometimes you’re so brutal in your attacks that you join in with the guys to shun, intimidate and shut down the victim.
“She just wants his money.”
“Why didn’t she tell about it sooner if he really assaulted her? Tell me that!”
“Look at the way she dresses—she brought this on herself.”
“He’s a nice guy. He would never do that. I don’t believe her.”
“He could have anyone he wants—why would he rape her?”
You do this time and time again.
You blame your husband’s mistress for his affair. You blame your friend for her husband’s affair. And you come to the rescue of . . . THE MEN. You tell your best friend she should just get over her husband’s affair and forgive him because after all, “He’s such a nice guy/He came back to you, didn’t he?/All men cheat,” you tell her. You grow tired of listening to her pain—perhaps it speaks to your own. You tell her to get over it, swallow it, put up with it. All the while you feel sorry for him. You excuse him.
You do this TIME AND TIME AGAIN—and you never recognize the pattern.
It’s time to recognize the pattern:
Time and time again . . . you excuse the men.
Time and time again . . . you blame the women.
This pattern is killing all of us. Let’s change it. Stop excusing, defending and rescuing the men. Instead, start questioning their stories. And dare to start believing, defending and supporting the women.