I hope the deliberations end swiftly with a highly favorable outcome for Heard so we can all be released from this circus but anyway I really had no idea Depp was alleging that Heard was an angel for the first year and a half of their official relationship until she started changing into something else. Therefore, his texts joking about smacking her and raping her burnt corpse are from BEFORE he alleges any abuse and the “venting” excuse his supporters put forth is entirely entirely groundless
Whether or not you care abt the heard/depp trial, the fact that the jurors weren’t isolated and so saw the thousands of memes and tiktoks abt the trial and then found in favor of depp will lead directly to abusers threatening their victims with legal action should they speak up. Death to celebrity culture.
I’ve seen a lot of posts going around encouraging people to donate to national DV coalitions, which is great!! but wanted to highlight some smaller organizations doing really amazing work that need the funds even more:
Tahirih Justice Center - serves immigrant survivors fleeing gender-based violence through legal advocacy and social services
National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women - gives resources and legal advice to survivors who have been charged with a crime related to surviving abuse - there’s another post going around w their info but it’s worth giving them a shoutout twice
Women’s Independence Scholarship Program - they provide scholarships to low income DV survivors for the length of their degree/certification, averaging $2,000 a semester
Give Back a Smile - matches DV survivors who have sustained oral injuries to doctors who will work on their teeth for free
it will always be insane to me how the gen-z “kill your rapist ” “kill all men” “woody allen die” girlies are the ones screaming at amber heard supporters on the internet like “how can you support her when there’s so much evidence against her?? there’s literally tapes of her insulting him and admitting to hitting him!!” like oh I’m sorry i didn’t realize it was cool to ~*kill*~ your rapist and abuser but not to hit him back or tell him to go fuck himself
Having watched the entirety of the trial, also being aware of evidence and testimony in previous trials, I very strongly view Amber as the abuser. And if you do not, I ask you to hear me out.
I’ve had a lot of emotional responses to what I’m seeing from people around me. At the end of the day, even though I’ve felt some anger and disappointment at certain statements in the feminist community/feminist media about this, I still respect and care about people I’ve known here. And I understand some of the sentiments behind the distress and fear this has caused, particularly in regards to the way female victims are believed in this culture, especially in light of the ugliest responses this trial is getting from the right wing and assholes online in general.
That said, the truth felt very clear to me. If you have not watched the actual trial and are getting your information second-hand through media sources, I would stress the necessity of actually assessing the real evidence and testimony for yourself and coming to your own conclusions. I am saying this as someone who knee-jerk reacted to her accusations by believing her, and staying in that state for years until I actually heard her on tape and saw her give testimony.
My perspective on this is that Amber has done something cruel and damaging beyond words, not just to Johnny, but to the survivor community as a whole, and I feel that some in the feminist community are failing genuine victims in our support of her. If Amber is the abuser and Johnny is the victim, some of us seem to have decided that his claims of being abused should ultimately be believed less. We picked and chose which victim to champion, seemingly based upon what felt better and less uncomfortable, regardless of the evidence.
That is what it means to suggest that Amber’s accusations should be believed over Johnny’s, despite audio tape of her admitting to and minimizing hitting him, and mocking his pain. Despite multiple audio tapes of her very clearly emotionally abusing and gaslighting him when he talks about his feelings of pain and distress. I don’t think I really need to elaborate in this post on how just how much her testimony breaks from the evidence and everyone else’s testimony (and it certainly does), because I think the audio is just that damning enough.
An old man’s use of ugly, misogynistic language in texts to other people, where he was venting his anger and pain over being violently abused, is not somehow more damning than actual recorded acts of emotional abuse and admissions and minimizations of violence on her part. it is not somehow more damning than her previous DV arrest against a woman of color who was her own wife. It is not somehow more damning than the evidence of her sister’s abuse.
Imperfect victimhood does not sound like the Amber on those tapes, abusing him and admitting to violence proudly. it does not look like the completely opposite persona she has adopted for trial vs. the tapes. It sounds like a man not knowing how to articulate his trauma, and defaulting to verbally misogynistic nonsense. it looks like someone who copes with drugs. It looks like someone slamming some cabinets.
How much more does Amber need to show us who she is before we start having real conversations about what it looks like when women abuse men, and what that means in the larger context of “Believe all women?” Violence against men is a feminist issue.
And we have a real problem with perceiving that right now, folks. It just takes a glimpse at the TERF community’s rhetoric to see what some feminists have to say about trans women, who they doggedly assert are men. Because in their minds, men are always the aggressors, men are always predators, even when these women are blatantly, openly abusing other, more marginalized women in the same breath as calling themselves victims. These are feminists who believe that because their victims are “men,” the violence and abuse they perpetrate is not only justified, but praise-worthy. Or how some feminists use the “fragile white woman” stereotype to get away with harming and abusing and silencing more marginalized people, women of color in particular. It just takes a glimpse at our online communities, with our para-social relationships and our cyber bullying problem, and how we love to rally around the biggest assholes in our midst.
We are not helpless little angels. Our ideology does not prove our innocence. Womanhood does not prove our innocence. We do not get to absolve ourselves of wrong-doing in the name of ideological surety and comfort. We cannot rhetoric our way around the facts in order to retroactively justify our support of an abuser.
I see in Amber all of the women who have utilized the feminist movement as a smokescreen for their abuse. Amber is not our ally. She is our user. We were conned by her. And she and her PR are responsible for making it harder for women to be believed after it seemed like things were finally moving forward. They are making it harder to perceive female abusers, who are known for playing victim and entrapping their victims that way.
We are hurting. And I get that. I’ve known too many female victims who haven’t been believed. I know first hand how it feels to have the harm done by a man in your life be minimized and ignored by others. But Johnny cannot be made responsible for the weight of our societal distress just because he was a victim and dared to say so. Even if it was against someone who claimed their own feminist heroism.
