Value victims’ lives

Writing as a longtime fan of Shawn Vestal’s work, I want to correct a sentence in today’s column (“Thompson’s alleged comments highlight problem,” Sept. 19, 2018).

He writes, in reference to recent sexual assault accusations against men: “… at a time when sexual misbehavior by powerful men is often smothered into silence by a tolerance for sexual misbehavior among older powerful men.”

Cover-up of that misbehavior is not new, as suggested. #MeToo is, we can only hope, the beginning of the end of that behavior, which has had free rein across cultures since the beginning of regulation and control of women’s bodies by men, otherwise known as “patriarchy,” thousands of years old.

It’s unfortunate that so many men are now worried that past misbehavior will come back to haunt them. It is far, far more unfortunate that so many victimized women (and men) are paying the price for that misbehavior for most or all of their lives.

We need to value the lives of victims of sexual assault as highly as we do that of the perpetrators, most of whom never have consequences for acts that often silently destroy the lives of their victims.

Time for change!

Marianne Torres

Spokane