As Olivia Rodrigo recently said in song form, “It’s always one step forward and three steps back.” That statement never seemed to be more apropos for the “strides” made in women’s rights since the #MeToo movement was ignited in 2017. But on June 30, 2021, an old reality set in: there is rarely, if ever, justice for women. Britney Spears isn’t asking for much, just, oh, the ability to live her life freely like most other rich people are. Especially if they’re rich men. Or, at the bare minimum, having her father, Jamie Spears, removed from any dealings with her conservatorship, along with the IUD that she’s being forced to keep inside of herself despite wanting another baby.
But such a request was evidently too much to ask of the courts, even one overseen by a fellow female. Alas, many women in power feel obliged to internalize the misogyny of their environments and reflect it back. It’s what they’ve been conditioned to believe will make them be seen as “one of the boys” and no different just because they’re a woman. What wasn’t too much to ask, however, was letting Bill Cosby go free after around sixty women came forward to share their tales of sexual assault, providing an avalanche of evidence. Just not the kind typically deemed “admissible” by a court. A woman’s word, after all, is only “hearsay.”
Without getting too “icky” by bringing the subject of race into things, the usual trope goes that the Black man is never set free (barring OJ), per a White reverence for systemic injustice. But one should take note that in both major high-profile instances of two Black men being freed from the sentence that was their rightful comeuppance, abuse of women was involved—full-stop murder in OJ’s case. Which just goes to show that even racial discrimination can be allowed to fall by the wayside if it involves choosing between a man’s freedom and a woman’s subjugation.
Bill Cosby’s release on an obscure legal technicality not only poses a significant threat to the progress made by the #MeToo movement in assuring women it’s okay to come forward and tell their story, but also further reiterates that women remain second-class citizens even in the so-called “land of the free.” Where freedom applies, more often than not, to those with the wealth and according power to buy it. Except, of course, if you are a woman, and particularly if you are a woman named Britney Spears. A woman called “mad.”
The judge, Brenda Penny, who ruled to keep Spears’ father, Jamie, as the co-conservator of her Estate did so, almost too uncannily in its metaphorical poeticness, the same day that Cosby was deemed fit for “liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (for him, perhaps that means cookin’ up some more “Spanish fly” for the ladies—and yes, Cosby freely incorporated “roofie humor” into his comedy act in the 60s, documented on the album, It’s True! It’s True!). The women he sexually assaulted? Not so much. No “pursuit of happiness” for them as they all have to keep living with the knowledge that they could not ultimately take down their monster.
Apparently, the universe said that Harvey Weinstein would have to suffice as the main sacrificial pig representing all predatory men in positions of power. And even Jeffrey Epstein didn’t get the consequences he was due thanks to taking the easy way out and “committing suicide” (a.k.a. actually protecting hordes of other gross men who would now never be implicated in Epstein’s sex trafficking ring).
To add to the insult of it all, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ruling will prevent Cosby from further prosecution. And, at eighty-three, many would argue that “there’s no point” anyway. But as a slew of aged men have proven to us over the past few years (including “Free Cosby” supporter Donald Trump), it is the oldest men who have the most fight in them (ahem, that includes Jamie Spears). For they are the most ferociously desperate to cling to their power before it slips away and, they, in turn, admit to their own mortality.
One thing they might not have to admit to, however, is the notion that patriarchy will die out when they (and their generation) do. Because, in all probability, it won’t. For, like racism, it is so deeply rooted and embedded in every aspect of our global society that it would take, essentially, blowing up the planet and starting all over again to eradicate it entirely. In which case, can Britney Spears please be a key player in that newly-founded matriarchy?
