When I first started thinking about this post it was going to be about how, once she has out-lived her usefulness, Donna Rotunno (one of Harvey Weinstein’s new lawyers) would be thrown under the bus along with all the other women she put there, but my perspective has changed. Yes, I still think she will have no value to the men she has defended once their cases are concluded, because how is she worth more than the use of her as a woman on the side of male abusers, when even she described her gender as an asset and said her look is “carefully calibrated to convey both strength and femininity”…(in her court cases against women alleging sexual abuse…sigh)

I now think she will be fine. She gets paid plenty and I very much doubt if she will run out of male abusers to defend any time soon.

My perspective now is more focused on something she said – “I have the ability to get away with a lot more in a courtroom cross-examining a female than a male lawyer does. He may be an excellent lawyer, but if he goes at that woman with the same venom that I do, he looks like a bully. If I do it, nobody even bats an eyelash. And it’s been very effective.”

Is it just me or was than an admission of bullying?

What gets me is that her job is NOT to browbeat and bully women who have alleged abuse, whole sections of the law she swore to uphold are (supposedly) dedictated to stopping that from happening, but once again money talks and a magazine interview, discussing an abusers THIRD set of lawyers, turns into an advert for her – directed straight at rich men who are likely to be accused of rape at some point. An advert in which she makes statements about women and their responsibilties BEFORE the case has even started and yet Weinstein being told to stop texting in court is ‘inflammatory’ and ‘prejudicial’. ‘Prejudicial‘…being told to stop texting…not telling women that they should never go anywhere with men or believe anything they say…texting.

I don’t begrudge Weinstein a robust defence, we should all be entitled to those, but what disgusts me is someone purposely and publicly revelling in their ability and willingness to traumatise abused people.

So I’ll leave the last word instead to Gloria Allred who is representing some of the women involved – “A venomous attack on a victim who alleges she has undergone traumatic sexual assault is simply not acceptable,” Allred added. “A bully is a bully regardless of their gender.”

Most quotes in this post from this article in The Guardian.