Are women really served by the extraordinary shift from 1990s Girl Power to post-MeToo victim feminism, asks Joanna Williams in Spiked. The Russell Brand and Luis Rubiales scandals provide key snapshots of how this massive shift towards a female victimhood narrative is playing out – and it’s not good for women, Williams argues. Here’s an excerpt.
To gauge how much has changed in a very short space of time, we need only look to last month’s Women’s World Cup final. That two-second kiss Luis Rubiales landed on the lips of footballer Jenni Hermoso made for a global news story. After being subjected to endless international criticism, Rubiales was issued with a restraining order banning him from going within 200 metres of Hermoso. His position unsustainable, he resigned as president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation last week. Not that long ago, Brand’s boasts of promiscuity helped launch him to stardom. Now, an over-enthusiastic peck on the lips can end a career and lead to court proceedings.
We need to ask whether this cultural shift has been in the best interests of women. Back in the mid-2000s, feminism was stuck between the Girl Power era of the 1990s and the Girlboss mantras of the 2010s. The antics of the Sex and the City women appealed to both ladettes and ‘Lean In’ feminists alike. And with the rise of lads’ mags and reality TV – mainly spurred on by Big Brother (Channel 4, again) – women could find fame and fortune in being young, attractive and ‘up for it’. It might not be fashionable to say it today, but for many young women, this was a time of fun and freedom, rather than exploitation and abuse.
All of this changed in 2017. The #MeToo movement took off when high-profile allegations of sexual assault were made against film producer Harvey Weinstein. The focus quickly shifted to denouncing a much broader range of male behaviour – ranging all the way from rape to unwanted knee-touching. We see this reflected in the Russell Brand scandal, where the most shocking accusations against him – of rape and sexual assault – appear alongside allegations of non-criminal misconduct and instances of consensual but regretted sex.
Women were also expected to change after #MeToo – to play the role of the victim. The very same television channels and newspaper columns that once titillated audiences with stories of drugs, booze and sex instead began to feature distraught tales of women being destroyed by an inappropriate remark or an unwanted look. Women went from being sexual objects to sexual victims.
Some will no doubt argue that this is progress; that men are being held to account and women are being given a voice. But let’s get real. Going from Girl Power to victim feminism in the space of two decades is no great leap forward for women.
Far from recognising women’s agency, victim feminism brings with it calls for more policing of the interactions between men and women. Fear and mistrust rule the day. The current fashion for trashing the sexual revolution leaves women not empowered but infantilised, presumed to be in need of consent classes at university, chaperones on dates or intimacy coaches on film sets.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Mary Harrington has written a very balanced analysis in UnHerd on the question of whether the investigation of Brand is a hit job on a dissenter, arguing that whatever the substance of the allegations, in this case as in many others, “everyone subordinates the question of sexual misbehaviour to a political assessment of the accused. And perhaps it was ever thus”. Indeed, the Sunday Times report itself indicates that “Brand’s new social media direction… was a factor in inspiring several to speak out”, she notes.
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“Luis Rubiales scandal”
What scandal?
“That two-second kiss” that has a Spanish female football claiming “RAPE” was more like 0.5 of a second, a quick peck. Evidence here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/U6C6qPpoG6I
Aside from that the whole article is spot on. More evidence that the world is going completely insane.
A humorous, satirical take on this…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aASMWtotCu8&t=47s
Victimhood is being actively promoted as another way to devide society by the tptb. Everybody these days is a victim of something or other.
How convenient that the accusations against Brand have come out now, he’s anti narrative with a large audience this is a witch hunt. I don’t think it will be to long before they start coming after sites like this.
You’re damn right. Victimhood seems to know no barrier nowadays. Everybody’s whinging about something! People need to grow a pair. And I mean that in the most unisex, inclusive way possible…
“inclusive”.. Excuse me.. I’m off to vomit..
Especially for you, Jon. Because you strike me as the sort who appreciates a nice pair of tuck-friendly undercrackers when he sees them.
https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1703840953708978242
It’s an extremely lefty pc right on bit of terminology though isn’t it Mogs…. Much better suited to the Guardian don’t you think…
And if you don’t like that try my most recent post at the bottom.. You may well wish to get it removed asap
These “cancellations” of people in the entertainment industry who challenge the Government’s policies is a re-run of the purge in the academic circles in the 2000s of anybody who challenged the Climate Agenda and those in medical circles in the 2020s who challenged the Pandemic Agenda. Anybody who didn’t comply was faced with confected charges of academic or professional misconduct, or even criminal charges; a mere allegation ended careers, as most people do not have the financial resources to defend themselves, whether the allegations are true, false, or debatable. Even the UK Parliament has been largely purged of anyone critical of the introduction of the new Pharmocracy and Climate-Media-Industrial complex, resulting in the creation of an unchallengeable Uniparty. which elections won’t change.
Russell Brand isn’t the first and certainly won’t be the last to be targeted for daring to speak Truth to Power and revealing how the trick is done. The important difference between the purges in academia and those in the entertainment industry is that the executions are carried out much more publicly rather than in secret rooms.
The important question to ask is not whether the allegations are true but who is organising and co-ordinating this campaign, why have they chosen this moment, and who will be next to be air-brushed out of the public eye.
An excellent assessment.
I just feel sorry for anyone who thinks this is anything but a hit job.
Even the times says it.
Inspired? When people write this, when the DS copies and pastes it, is it really not registering how insane our society is becoming?
Who the hell is “inspired” to report a crime 10 or 15 years later? If someone commits a crime you don’t wait to be Inspired to report it.
Inspired? WTF.
This is quite the investigative journalism piece in this mega-long thread, if you click on all the ”show more” bits. Props to the guy for doing all of this leg work. The reason the women ( if they’re even real and not paid actors, which is what I suspect ) never went to the police, which would be the norm under such circumstances, is because they’ve got bugger all evidence, so a massive smear campaign it is. And if it is an ex with a grudge then I guess everybody’s got their price.
”Channel 4 and ‘Times’ Russell Brand Hit-Piece Exposed: Right & Left Wing British Media Unite to Smear Alternative Voices
Russel Brand is a well known ALTERNATIVE media personality. He doesn’t follow or propagate the mainstream narrative. An Axis of MSM has colluded to DESTROY @rustyrockets
reputation because he poses an existential threat to them.
When he led a hedonistic lifestyle, mainstream media promoted and broadcast his stereotypically liberal behaviour. At that time they had no issue.
But decades later, after he left that lifestyle, and agitated MSM – both the Right and Left wing branches, they have manufactured weak allegations out of his past to take him out.”
https://twitter.com/ShaykhSulaiman/status/1703457208699142607
A mini video clip from someone explaining how he thinks the text was edited by The Times;
https://twitter.com/ShaykhSulaiman/status/1703637149310984459
And these ladies suddenly got the “inspiration” to make the accusations. Apparently women who are assaulted aren’t “inspired” enough to report the crime until the aggressor takes a certain social media “direction”.
I’m not sure who are the bigger clowns, the ladies who suddenly got inspired to fling accusations at Brand or the people in the general public who talk about these allegations as if they might be somehow legit.
They ain’t no ”ladies”. ”Bribed” would be a better description, I reckon. This was my main concern though, the fact that this completely fictitious BS dramarama is now going to make it 1000 times harder for any woman coming forward who’s a legitimate victim of sexual assault or domestic abuse and wishes to start with legal proceedings. I mean, I think it’s a hard enough thing to prove anyway, let alone 10+ years down the line. There will be innocent men who’s lives have been ruined, even getting sent down, as a result of being wrongly found guilty of sexual assault due to some malicious, revenge-driven woman, just like there are men who are walking free who are actually guilty, perhaps as a result of the woman never actually going through the ordeal of taking her case to court. Of course all of this applies to male victims too.
My point is that the media involved in this are doing a demolition job on somebody without an iota of evidence, nothing that would even get to court, let alone stand up there, just words. It literally boils down to ”he said/she said”, and they’re doing a massive disservice to real victims who should be confident in pressing charges against their abuser in the future. If these ‘women’ are actors or they’re exes that were tracked down and could be bribed, this whole thing basically smacks of women shafting other women, because it’s not just Brand who will suffer in isolation is it? It’s his wife, kids and it’s genuine victims of sexual assault or abuse out there, which is the real travesty here.
You don’t understand, do you think the law in this country is black and white? So did I until I was convicted based on “he said /she said…
Let me tell you, the law is corrupt, just like everthing else.
For all the reasons that you explain the media who push rhis are complete and utter scum.
And they are without question behind this stuff.
When Rubiales kissed that football player, for the next 24 hours the player pleaded with the press to drop it, because it was detracting from their accomplishment. So the so called victim didn’t want any patt of it and was bullied and thrust together with Rubiales into an international scandal concocted entirely by the media.(She’s now been dropped from the squad to add insult to injury).
Same with Brand. This isn’t driven by the supposed victims. This is driven by the producers of a programme who put together a hit job on Brand.
The media are so morally vacuous that they will use literally anything to bludgeon somebody. They’ll use anti semitic, racism, sexism, they’ll tap into anyone’s misery, like some disposible device to get at someone. Thereby demonstrating hoe little they actually care about any of those things.
Scum. Pure scum.
Most of the mainstream media companies have BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street as their major institutional stockholders, forming a controlling bloc through their proxy voting rights. Channel Four is owned by the British state, as opposed to the British Government. The Brand incident is a demonstration that they try to can take down anyone. What will happen to this site when Labour gets into power? Or GB News? I think we know how it’ll go…
It seems to me, as much as I am envious of this and hate to admit it, Brand was in his youth a Svengali type character. He could bed women almost at will. These men pop-up every now and then and just have the charisma and ease of approach to, as many have admitted, mesmerise them and turn them on. So the fact is most of the women he went to bed with, weren’t just willing but VERY willing. They were also under NO illusions he was going to stay with them which put him in, as it were, the “the lads sweet spot” because, in meeting him all the relationship stuff became a non issue. Women, finding they liked him and wanted him sexually, were prepared and ready mentally for the fact they were about to have a pure no strings attached evening of sexual abandon. Given this reputation was absolutely known to all, I question the honesty of any woman who says otherwise. Indeed there is no doubt women continually sought him out. So that some are now saying his changing his politics has been a factor in them coming forward is nothing but a logical travesty. IMO these women were almost certainly willing but later didn’t like the fact they realised everyone would be thinking – quite accurately – they were willing, so started, trying to recover the image they used to see in the mirror before meeting Brand, revising the memory. The mind, self image and self disgust are VERY powerful emotionally and have a MASSIVE hold on perception and are absolutely capable of revising a persons historical sense of consent if they are in the least bit emotionally dishonest with themselves.
Place that he slept with “thousands” of women alongside the fact he is running billionaire globalists and proven psychotic corporations up the wrong way and you have a massive pool of potential for smears and the resources to easily procure the information to do so.
I notice his ex, Katy Perry, hasn’t piped up yet, giving her support. I’ve no idea if their split was acrimonious or not as I don’t normally follow celebrity, vacuous nonsense. RB was a complete slapper though, that much is true. In fact wasn’t he a sex addict, or was it an addiction to illicit substances only? Can’t remember, but if any of those women are actually real exes then they’ve obviously been bribed. That’s plain as day. Also the fact that anyone could be so spiteful as to go after him now that he’s got a family is just the lowest of the low. I think his kids may be too young to fully comprehend what’s going on but I feel really bad for his wife though. These scum aren’t just destroying him they’re going after the whole family aren’t they? Nasty b’stards!
Yes for the reasons you’ve given I wouldn’t put much weight in what she says, plus she still has Hollywood pretensions which gives a massive incentive for a certain luvvie type to lie through their teeth.
He dumped her. It’s on a documentary following her around on one of her tours. Lots of tears.
So if she harbours any grudges, the pile on will just get bigger.
We need to accept that even people on our side can turn out to be wronguns.
True, and Brand could be a wrongun; I don’t know but i don’t think so. I’ve downvoted because in this context your comment cannot but be taken to imply he is, when this is based on thoroughly untrustworthy MSM narrative.
Like the MSM approach to Prince Andrew?
Brand is a man that I wouldn’t want near even my ex-wife (and I hate her) – his treatment of the late Andrew Sachs should have seen him “cancelled”, but at that point he was one of the wokerati, and so had a free pass.
How does the MSM approach to prince Andrew validate the legitimacy of the MSM approach to Brand? Did prince Andrew lay into Big Pharma and Biden family corruption. I must have missed that one.
If Russell Brand has comitted the crimes of which he has been accused in the media, then it is down to the police to investigate and to prosecute if there is evidence, it is then down to a court to acquit or to find guilty. It is not the right of the Murdoch press or the Government owned channel 4 to play Police man, judge and jury in the court of public opinion.
The couple of questions I have in this is why are these victims only speaking out now, 10 years later?, why didn’t they go to the Police at the time?
Why has there been no more noise in the media regarding Hugh Edwards and his grooming of a yong person, what happened to the Phillip Scholfield story? Why has the Murdoch media not investigated Bill Gates, Bill Clinton two names amonst other men who were frequent visitors to Epstein island and his young girls for pleasure offers?
Smacks a bit too much of the powerful media magnets and their friends in Pharma etc closing down voices who draw to much focus on their machinations.
If Brand has Raped etc then bring it to court, the MSM is not the place to ruin a career or a man, and no one needs to take lessons in Morals from Rupert Murdoch a man who oversaw the hacking of a child who was murdered mobile phone.
And there’s been a fair bit of discussion on GBN as to whether there could be a proper jury trial at all, given the circumstances. One of the points made was that if one or more of the unidentified alleged victims had reported it to a police force, and it had been taken up as a prosecution, the coverage would have been very different for legal reasons. If he can afford it, perhaps a civil case for damages may occur; we’ll see.
It’s too late now. The media pile-on means there’s no hope of a fair trial. He’s been convicted and disgraced in the court of public opinion and not a charge has been filed against him.
Indeed, the current sexual counterrevolution is really getting ridiculous now. Even the self-proclaimed sexual counterrevolutionary Mary Harrington is having issues with it, apparently.
Anyone out there wish to take the Jimmy Saville challenge?
The challenge is simply that you present one single piece of evidence ( NOT allegations though) that JS committed the crimes he’s accused of.
No one has passed the challenge yet, but maybe someone here will be the first?
“The volume of the allegations that have been made, most of them dating back many years, has made this an unusual and complex inquiry. On the whole victims are not known to each-other and taken together their accounts paint a compelling picture of widespread sexual abuse by a predatory sex offender. We are therefore referring to them as ‘victims’ rather than ‘complainants’ and are not presenting the evidence they have provided as unproven allegations.”
https://library.nspcc.org.uk/HeritageScripts/Hapi.dll/filetransfer/2013GivingVictimsAVoiceSexualAllegationsMadeAgainstJimmySavile.pdf?CookieCheck=45187.9949214699&filename=CC18C70DB7C8C3D49403BB94EB176F95207E5F66235DCA89651F5ED2BA5DA9311A3547010EB1745F9098C8189E66B54F16BBCA4419250DDAE584462476E362622BD259A20D1597309210AC995C99F449C7702D4CF7627CBCEC72291068BFEAFDDC8C9625B71658F22EAD1E815FED12FF6D0DEB5CDBB40AEA4EF5D058E57168353BEB2DA3730B57DF729865CC3271FEE73BB1D434AB645BB5&DataSetName=LIVEDATA
… and that is why the Henriques Report recommended that police use the term “complainant” rather than “victim”, at least until a guilty verdict has been returned by a jury. https://qna.files.parliament.uk/qna-attachments/891843/original/Review%20into%20the%20Terminology%20Victim%20Complainant%20and%20Believing%20Victims%20at%20time%20of%20Reporting.pdf
Russel Brand’s victims were so traumatically assaulted they phone his publicist rather than the police. Then tell no-one apart from Channel 4 fifteen years later in one of the flimsiest exposés in TV history.
I wonder what the cartel are paying them..
They will do it for free, for fame, for social kudos, and also for retroactive vengeance.
I question how this information was released, and why on TV instead of in the dock
If there’s enough to charge RB, then the police should have been leading the investigation.
In the event it does go to court, surely they will fail to find any juror who has not already heard this gossip, which should lead to a mistrial.
If there’s not enough evidence, then this seems to be defamation.
I’m not a lawyer, obviously, but this seems wrong.
https://off-guardian.org/2023/09/18/discuss-the-russell-brand-investigation/
Off-G’s views on the Russell Brand story.
Not an RB fan, but what happened to ‘innocent until proved guilty’? The media, on the basis of ‘allegations’ from four women (one who said his eyes turned black….no more colour (‘I swear to God’, she said), have pronounced him guilty, and various organisations that he’s worked with have severed their ties. And WHY do women who allege rape have anonymity but not the person accused??!! Like others here, I’d like to know how much these woman have been paid for their stories.
I’m not entirely sure they will have been paid, but they will have been encouraged to do so with the knowledge of being paid a considerable amount of damages in the future…
Consensual sex can easily be turned in to rape 15 years later..
Its a feminised world we live in, theres only “toxic masculinity” remember…
And I quote…..”he put his penis in my mouth and down my throat and it made me choke”…
Some women enjoy that…
She could have bitten it off…
I had a conversation with a female friend many many years ago, she pointed out the vulnerability of the male during oral sex…
And which party was truly in the most powerful position..
We both agreed it was the female…
I haven’t had any time to Russell Brand, or Jonathan Ross since the despicable prank calls inflicted on Andrew Sachs. To the extent that I have avoided his YouTube videos which are broadly supportive, apparently, of my position on recent world events. That being said the current demonisation seems to me to have all the hallmarks of a well orchestrated hit job. I’m waiting for further developments before making up my mind.
I think the issue is that Western society supposedly operates on Judeo-Christian values that believe sinners can be redeemed. The Russell Brand of 2008 is not the Russell Brand of 2023, 15 years after the disgusting Andrew Sachs business.
Every single human being could be made look like a sicko if someone contacted everyone he’s crossed paths with, fallen out with, slept with, got drunk with or whatever. Talk to all the people who had a bad experience with you, cut out all the people who have anything nice to say about you and you can turn anyone into a monster.
More than anything, this was a fishing expedition. They admit they set out to bury him because of his YouTube channel.
If making accusations of sexual assault is so traumatic that people leave it ten or so years, why then do they go to the media first? Surely its far less traumatic to take your allegations to the police first and maintain your privacy.
Why wait all this time? Why go to the media instead of the police? I smell a rodent.
I suppose one allegation doesn’t alter another…but I have to ask why the entire media is interested in this story..?
Can’t help thinking it’s co-ordinated, when it appears in every single MSM outlet…all saying the same thing…
Also, when these things surface..they are often hiding a serious story they want to go under the radar….??
I agree with June why isn’t this a huge headline? Eleven for goodness sake….
June Slater
@juneslater1
So a serial celebrity shagger did some shagging a decade ago and some adult claims he never got permission for one of the shags…have I got this right?
It’s covered by every clickbait publication from here to Venus The mainstream are repeating it in their rolling news bollox and this happens in Barnsley and no one gives a shit.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-66810802
A man has appeared in court charged with raping an 11-year-old girl in South Yorkshire.
Ziad Talibi, 41, is accused of attacking the girl at a property in Spencer Street, Barnsley, on 10 September.
I think the taking down of Russell Brand has clearly been orchestrated by the cabal due to him pulling back the curtain on the truth of the supra national power base that runs the world using propaganda, censorship, mind control and the Hegelian dialectic. Of course it is an added bonus to these people to take him out playing into the women victimhood narrative. Whilst we are on the topic of the Womens’ world cup final the most degrading moment in that spectacle for me was not a man kissing a woman but Mary Earps repeatedly screaming Fu*k Off at the Spanish players after she saved a penalty. Amazingly this disgusting behaviour was praised by the commentary, the media and seemingly society as a whole…
If Russell Brand really is guilty of the more serious allegations (rape and sexual assault), then he deserves all of what is coming to him and more. For all we know he may well be guilty as charged, especially given his fairly sizable number of accusers which may still grow yet. Otherwise, though, this article still makes some good points.
Easy now… He’s not even been “charged”….. Gossiped more like