Hello there, I am a feminist. This is not meant as a surprise. If you google “Emily Heller f…” it autofills with “feminism,” because apparently I’m the only female comedian in the world whose feet the internet does not want to see. And, though it contradicts our Official Feminist Recruitment Platform, I have to confess something. Me and my friends - we hate men. I admit it! We often sit around talking about how much we hate men, and the society they made, and the shit they put us through on a daily basis. You got me! I confess! ;-P
Sure, there are some good ones in there. My boyfriend, for example. Terry Crews, for another example. AND YET. When my coven and I are sitting around bitching (lol) about men and plotting the downfall of the patriarchy, you know what we never, ever talk about doing? You know what strategy has never once crossed our minds?
Pretending to have been raped.
I know that might come as a shock to you, considering how incredibly certain some folks are that the women making these accusations against Bill Cosby, James Deen, R. Kelly, and many others are lying. You know, just making stuff up to try and destroy an innocent guy’s reputation, because they hate men or something, like I do. And while I’m not surprised people think that way, I feel I have to set things straight. Us man haters, when we want to ruin a man’s life, that’s not how we work.
I’m a little hurt, honestly. You don’t think we’re creative enough, smart enough - hell, evil enough to come up with better revenge plots than that? You know, stuff that would feel more at home in a montage under an angry Beyoncé song?
Here’s just a SHORT list of punishments I’d rather inflict on a guy I hate:
- Hide a hundred alarm clocks in his room set to various ungodly hours
- Put a bunch of wack bumper stickers on his car (I did this one time. It was great. One of them said “The Goddess is dancing and magic is afoot”).
- Stretch cellophane over his toilet bowl (but under the seat).
- Do everything they do in the song “Hit ‘Em Up Style”
- Publish his poetry (no man’s poetry is good)
- Pile a bunch of watermelons at his door and then ring the bell and run
- Release his high school band’s demo (if anyone did this to me I would die)
That’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure there are better ideas out there that would be more satisfying. I haven’t seen Waiting to Exhale, but I vaguely remember from the preview that they set someone’s car on fire in it, and while I’d never do that myself, it does seem like a hoot! Accusing someone of rape, on the other hand, isn’t even Plan Z.
You know why? Because making a false rape or abuse accusation is NOT FUN. Making a TRUE rape or abuse accusation is NOT FUN. It is, instead, a reliable way for the accuser to get harassed, doubted, mocked, threatened, sued for defamation, ostracized from her community, scrutinized for her sexual behavior, blamed for her own pain, and generally treated like crap. It’s one of the least effective, riskiest, most terrifying ways to fuck with someone’s life other than your own. And the chances of it bringing consequences for the accused are perilously low! According to RAINN, only two percent of rapists will ever see jail time. Think of all the famous men who have been accused of violence against women. Are any of them bankrupt? How many are in jail? And how many are walking around still adored millionaires?
Before she was the award-winning director / writer behind the brilliant film The Diary of a Teenage Girl, my sister Marielle Heller was making her living as a theater actor in New York. One day she called me to ask for my advice about an audition she was offered, because she knows I’m a genius. The role was a rape victim on Law & Order: SVU. You see, she wasn’t sure she even wanted to audition, because - get this - she didn’t want to pretend to have been raped. If she landed the part, they were going to pay her money! She was going to be on television! She was going to meet Richard Belzer! She would get to eat all kinds of cheeses off the craft services table! Maybe even brie! But she knew that in order to get all those things, she’d have to spend the day thinking about being raped, and talking about being raped, and acting as if she had been raped, and she wasn’t sure she could handle it. If my sister didn’t want to play a rape victim for money, an IMDB credit, and face time with the Belz, what makes you think these women want to do it for free, for fun, for spite?
So, yeah, men. Sometimes we do hate you. What do you expect? You harass us, you cheat on us, you legislate our bodies, you blame us for the Beatles breaking up. And sometimes we even want to ruin your lives. But we’re too clever and wonderful and self interested to lie about being raped to do it.
When we say we were raped, it’s because we were raped. When we say we were abused, it’s because we were abused. And we need you to believe us.
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