Girls don’t go quietly anymore – they become women with a voice

So, maybe at long last the party’s over, chaps. No, not that party. Or that one. Or even indeed, that one. The party I’m talking about is the one where a load of rich middle-aged men turn up to a private island and are offered teenage girls to have sex with.

And instead of looking round at their host aghast, backing away, uttering, “no, no – this isn’t right, this isn’t what I wanted. I was just here for the barbecue. Get me out of here!” and making a dash for the nearest light aircraft; instead of doing that, these men smiled and said: “Thank you very much, I’ll take that blonde one and a hot dog with everything on it.”

This is not a recent problem. Nor is it a narrow one. The horrors that are currently being inflicted on young girls in Afghanistan – taken for prizes by old men – are in the same realm. Virginal girls “given” as rewards for good or brave deeds is not a new phenomenon.

It’s just that apparently in some circles the definition of “good or brave deeds” is somewhat hazy. But in every scenario the girls, the young women, are objects to be passed around by powerful men and then discarded when they become “noisome” or “boring” or sometimes above the legal age of consent.

These girls are then meant to disappear, never heard of again; perhaps die in a tragic accident or drug overdose, or maybe to be witnessed mumbling in the street, a local crazy lady who claims she slept with a rich man a long time ago.

What they are not meant to do is grow up into smart, together women who live in a time of unprecedented access to widespread instant communication tools such as social media platforms.

They are not meant to remember every detail, and rather than crumple in shame and distress, they are especially not meant to come out swinging with a flinty look in their eye. They are meant to give up.

Well not any more. Girls don’t go quietly anymore. They become women with a voice and a very good memory. And this is a fact that must be terrifying to men and women who have been up to no good in the past, all over the world. No, they don’t disappear. They don’t die. They won’t be discredited.

If you try to squash them, they only come back stronger and greater in number. Because once one woman you abused puts her head above the parapet and makes that first allegation, others inevitably start to speak up – as Harvey Weinstein and a whole host of others before him have found out.

Because of Twitter, the abused have a voice and then a meeting place, and then a support network. The world has changed and the past is going to keep catching up with anyone who has a history of abusing people, making the present difficult for them but hopefully improving the future for everyone else.

To keep up to speed with all the latest opinions and comment sign up to our free weekly Voices Dispatches newsletter by clicking here

It’s really about consequences, which are best served piping hot the moment after the transgression occurs so that a lesson is learned that instant. But if for some reason the consequences are deferred, say because the perpetrator was part of an international network of wealthy people all covering their own and each other’s arses, then it will be a dish served cold, chilled even, and perhaps with a little sprinkling of revenge for extra seasoning. In short, it doesn’t taste very nice but it’s by the time it arrives it’s already too late to send it back.

When Tarana Burke started the #MeToo movement back in 2006, I am sure she knew she was on to something powerful. But this powerful? Perhaps not. Wealthy, powerful abusers are quaking at the thought of previously sealed documents being made public, the convicted are already serving long jail terms. The opportunity social media has provided for those who were previously expected to simply “shut up and take it” to have a voice and use it is remarkable and encouraging.

Of course some people don’t like it. Perhaps it’s the people who lament that in the “old days, women didn’t seem to mind a pat on the bum at work”. The thing is, we did mind, they did mind. It’s just back then there was no one to tell who would listen or even care. That’s changed now and so let’s hope the world is ready to hear it.