the her fault phenomenon

Growing up, like many young people, I paid close attention to celebrities. Specifically, I paid attention to the women. I admired their confidence, mirrored their cadence, and observed their relationships with the eyes of a young girl still discovering the world. In doing so, many of them became my role models. However, I also noticed the more bleak side of the spotlight. The women that were bullied into hiding for the way they looked, the people they dated, and the things they did or didn’t do. I became aware of a standard that existed without being said, one that didn’t allow women the same room to make mistakes as it did men, and often pointed blame at them for things outside of their control. I called this the Her Fault Phenomenon. 

The first time I observed this take place was in middle school. I was friends with a girl who had sent her boyfriend her nude photos and subsequently had them spread throughout the school. I first heard about it from another female friend, and later from the perpetrator himself. The narrative that seemed to prevail was that it was her fault for sending the pictures in the first place, one that was continued not only by the boy who spread them and his friends, but also the girls in my year, some of whom had been friends of hers. There were many variations of the story that I heard, none of which came from the girl herself, who later transferred schools. 

Years later, a similar thing happened to a female pop star who happened to have been a childhood favorite of mine. Her nude pictures and videos were leaked, and though on a much larger scale, she experienced the same smearing my friend had years before. Reviled by the media that seemed to worship her days before, she eventually went into hiding. The media in time seemingly moved on from it, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t believe how quickly people had turned on her, especially the women. I thought then about my friend, and how quickly we’d turned on her back then, and things started to make sense. 

I can’t count the amount of times I’ve observed this phenomenon take place in my life. No matter who it was or the form it took, the principle was always the same, as was the pain that followed. What I didn’t realize until later, though, was how that pain carries. I’m not the only girl to witness or experience having one’s nude photos spread. I’m not the only girl who read the blameful stories and comments and watched these women be turned on for their mistakes. There are millions of young girls who, like me, are observing the way people like them get treated and internalizing these notions, believing that that’s just how things are. These young girls then grow up in a world where these ideas promoting misogynistic ideals are perpetuated, and project that internalized misogyny onto the women around them, and so the cycle continues. 

I don’t delude myself in believing that the men who sustain this narrative will wake up one day and suddenly change their ways in entirety. What I do believe is that by first addressing the issues within our own community working to eliminate unfair standards, women have the ability to initiate that change ourselves.