Where is Olivia Benson when you need her?
I’ll admit that I never knew much about the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal aside from the well-known phrase, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” I attribute this to three things – me being a child at the time, the absence of social media, and the lack of movement in women’s rights initiatives that exist today. Not even fictional character Olivia Benson of Law and Order Special Victims Unit was fighting against sex crimes until 1999, so these situations were just being brought to light.
Had the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal been broken on social media, TMZ probably would have released secret footage, and then people would come from either side trolling Lewinsky for being a “insert negative sexual feminine noun here” and Clinton would have either been roasted or applauded depending on the commenter. The media is so unpredictable sometimes. Kim Kardashian became famous for a sex tape, but Monica Lewinsky has been shamed since 1998 for her sexual encounter.
Instead of giving empathy, keyboard warriors are harsh and play the shame game. Lewinsky (2015) says that empathy is how we fight the shame. She says that we need to support organizations that embrace compassion and instill empathy in a reformed culture. That is being proactive from the heart, but we also need to be proactive from the mind. To prevent and improve situations like these, we need laws that protect our private data and information. Without empathy in our culture and protection in our laws, the trolls are just waiting for the next story to break to tear down someone new through cyberbullying. Monica Lewinsky may have been the first to lose her reputation so quickly and widely, but she has not been the last.
References
Lewinsky, M. [TED]. (2015, March 20). The price of shame [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_8y0WLm78U
