by Brandi Amara Skyy

Women accusing Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault

The biggest trending topics this week all had to do with men in power — lots of power.
This week we bore witness to the downfall of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and the curtain being yanked back to expose what went on behind his Hollywood closed doors.
On Oct. 5, two women — Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey — broke the news to The New York Times that “Harvey Weinstein paid off sexual harassment accuser for decades.”
On Oct. 10, Ronan Farrow’s New Yorker piece blew the roof off the story, with another Jodi Kantor piece following that same day in the Times.
It turns out Harvey’s assault list is as big as the movies he’s produced: 28 women so far — and those are just the ones that have spoken out. Who knows how many more will come forward in the future?!
Here’s what we all want to know: Will Harvey see jail time? Here’s my answer: Did Bill Cosby?
Don’t like that answer? How about this one: Was Casey Affleck’s career thwarted amid not one but TWO sexual harassment suits? Nope. He won an Oscar instead.
But here’s what happens when a female calls bullshit on the sacred cis-heteronormative (white) brotherhood: She get’s banned from Twitter.
That’s right. Rose McGowan was banned from Twitter for calling out the patriarchy.

Tweets from Rose McGowan. Via Twitter

This is the same Twitter that has allowed Trump to go off on countries in ways that could potentially lead us to nuclear war. And this is the same patriarchal society that brushes off Casey Affleck’s sexual assault charges and will now “forgive” Ben Affleck’s inappropriate and totally uncalled for groping (aka sexual assaulting) of a female interviewer.

OH, WAIT. I’m sorry. This all just male “locker room” banter — something I, as a female, wouldn’t understand, right?
If these incidents aren’t blatant-enough examples that patriarchy still reins supreme, then how about this:
We have a female assaulter and self-proclaimed “pussy grabber” sitting in our nation’s (some would argue the world’s) biggest seat of power, the White House, as our President.
Let that sink in … . Our president.
And then there’s Jerry Jones.
A few weeks ago, I wrote my fifth Trending Tea piece about my love of Dallas Cowboys’ football and how I didn’t think I could continue supporting the team if they did nothing amid Trump’s “sons of bitches” attack on NFL players that took a knee.
Turns out that their response of linking arms and taking a knee before standing for the National Anthem was, at least for Jerry Jones, a publicity stunt.
Because this week we learned that all that fake news that was spreading about how he would bench any player who kneeled during the anthem turned out to be true.
Rapper Common called Jerry’s move “a slave owner’s” mentality. The Texas Labor Union called it illegal and filed a complaint against the owner saying, “The employer, evidenced by repeated public statements, is attempting to threaten, coerce and intimidate all Dallas Cowboys players on the roster in order to prevent them from exercising concerted activity protected under the act by saying that he will fire any players involved in such concerted activity.”
Both are right. And I will not watch another Dallas Cowboys’ football game until Jerry Jones is no longer the owner — or until he dies.
Because I will not voluntarily support any company, person, or football owner who knowingly strips a marginalized group’s First Amendment right to peacefully protest. And because it’s not just his football players who are bearing the brunt of his covertLY racist words and actions; it’s also (once again) women.
Jemele Hill, a Black female ESPN announcer, was suspended from her job because of her tweets calling out Jerry Jones’ bullshit. ESPN claimed they suspended her because this was her second infraction that went against their social media guidelines. Can you take a wild guess at who was the alleged first infraction?
That’s right. Trump. And the White House insisted she be fired for it.

So let’s recap.
Who still has their careers, their jobs, and their Twitter accounts? And what do these men have in common besides heaping amounts of power?
Privilege. More specifically, white male privilege. It’s the same privilege that many men claim to not have — even gay ones. And it’s the same white male privilege (Russian or not) that kept Hillary Clinton out of the White House.
The patriarchy still exists. And the real tea is the longer we ignore it (especially in today’s society) the stronger it will become.