Alyssa Milano: Harvey Weinstein Isn’t Alone. Our Institutions Are Rapists
Two of rapist Harvey Weinstein’s convictions have been overturned, and in New York he has been granted a new trial. And while it’s important to note that the rapist’s conviction in California stands, and that the rapist is old, weak, and sometime soon he will die alone and unloved in a prison cell in one state or another, this injustice is just another example of how all of our American institutions are built to demean and devalue women–to them, our bodies are commodities to be used, and that will be their downfall.
Take, for example, Brock Turner (now going by Allen Turner and living in the Dayton, Ohio area). He spent only three months in a jail—not a prison—for three counts of felony sexual assault. (He had been initially indicted on five charges: two for rape, two for felony sexual assault, and one for attempted rape, although the two rape charges were later withdrawn.)
The judge in that case, Aaron Persky, said that he was concerned about the “severe impact” of a long prison sentence on then collegiate athlete Turner when he sentenced him. Of course, the “severe impact” Allen (née Brock) Turner’s victim didn’t matter to Persky–a man’s freedom was threatened, after all, and what does a woman’s suffering and the safety of all other women matter in comparison to that? Rumors abound that Turner likes to hang out at bars in Dayton–the kind of place where people like his victim tend to spend time.