Believe Women | The Invisible Man in the #MeToo Era
When it comes to any form of abuse, it can feel like most of the battle is getting people to actually believe you.
This feeling is true to life. Many survivors cite others lack of willingness to believe them as one of the primary reasons that they did not come forward initially. And the statistics for those who DO come forward are not incredibly positive. Out of every 1,000 rapes, 994 perpetrators will walk free, according to a report by RAINN that cited 2010-2014 Bureau of Justice statistics.
The fact of the matter is, our culture seems to struggle to believe women. And, in many cases were sexual assault clearly did happen, they simply choose to not believe that women are the victim.
"The fact of the matter is, our culture seems to struggle to believe women."
In Dr. Jessica Taylor's book, Why Women Are Blamed for Everything, she shares some startling statistics.
- "Johnson (1997) found that a significantly higher proportion of men than women endorsed rape myths that stated that most rapes could be prevented if women didn't provoke them and if women didn't secretly want to be raped (Sleath, 2011).
- More recent studies found that a third of the UK general public sample believed a woman behaving in a flirtatious way was responsible for being raped and believed that a woman was responsible for being raped if she failed to say 'no' clearly enough (Amnesty International, 2005)
- McMahon and Farmer (2011) found that 53% of the students agreed that the actions of the woman led her to being raped. In the UK, The Fawcett Society (2017) found that 34% of women and 38% of men agreed that women are at least partially to blame for rape.
This cultural view of women leads to the same consequences for real life survivors as it does for our fictional main character. A feeling of isolation, betrayal, and loneliness.
While many survivors have proven their inner strength by aggressively taking a stand and fighting back on their own, much pain and hardship could be softened if those closest to them would gather round, lift them up, and have their back.
The Invisible Man is currently streaming on HBO Max. Rated R for some strong bloody violence, and language.







