memes

This public shaming of Heard is not new fodder for abusers. It is something they have long threatened survivors with and will continue to do so. (Depp’s victory just shows both victims and abusers that it works.) Many survivors have been exactly where Heard is—we just haven’t seen it because it hasn’t been live-streamed. They’ve been mocked, ridiculed, accused of being the abusive one, and even arrested and jailed for attempting to defend themselves against abuse.

Someone once said the simplest answer is usually the right one. So either we believe that a man with a nearly unlimited amount of fame, money and power let all that go to his head, and, amplified with copious amounts of alcohol and drugs, was abusive toward his wife and is now punishing his former partner for speaking out using the U.S. court system. Or we believe that Amber Heard is an abusive woman who wrote an op-ed about being a survivor for the sole purpose of … fame? Revenge? And is now entangled in a web of near-constant lies while Johnny Depp is suffering from PTSD after her terrifying abusive tirades.

Regardless, the final outcome boils down to one thing: we all lose. Depp’s manipulation of the courts has done a disservice to true male victims of abuse who already face stigmas stepping forward. He has laughed in the face of a woman whose “rotting corpse,” he once wished, “was decomposing in the f–king trunk of a Honda Civic.” He has shown the freedom money can buy and has proven a fact most women were already well aware of: we are on trial the moment we say “no more.”