Regarding the response to Dylan Farrow's letter:

[BainsBane]

67. Rape culture doesn't arise by accident

It is carefully constructed one case at a time. No allegation or charge of sexual assault goes without many insisting the accused is innocent and the victim a liar. A single case of false accusation is invoked to excuse each and every rapist or child molester. In the case of rape, the woman who accused the Duke Lacrosse player is the trope by which every other rapist is defended. In the case of childhood sexual abuse, the McMartin case serves that role. Someone actually referred to the McMartin case, an entirely unrelated event, as a "fact" in the case of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow. He insisted not paying attention to that was "ignoring the facts" while simultaneously completely ignoring Dylan's statement in the Times. They will talk about the investigation when Dylan was seven and completely ignore the fact she gave a statement this week. So through this case, like in every other, we see rape culture in action. We see perpetrators defended and victims ignored , denounced as liars, and shamed. This is precisely how rapists are able to operate with virtual impunity in this country. In using these tried and true methods to defend sexual assailants, they (sometimes the same people in every single case) actively engage in a concerted effort to maintain rape culture, even while they deny it doesn't exist. I no longer believe it is coincidental.