On Saturday Dylan Farrow accused her adoptive father, the filmmaker and actor Woody Allen, of sexual assault for the second time. She first made these allegations when she was seven years old, in the context of the custody battle between her separating parents. At the time, the case was considered too weak to proceed to a criminal trial. This time, she's asking the people who have worked with and supported him to respond and to be in some way accountable for any part they may have played in promoting or protecting him.
Now 28, she's asking that we not only take her claims seriously, but that we act on them. She's asking, after years of accolades for her adoptive father's genius, for the people who have worked with her father to bear some responsibility for her pain. This is some of what she said in an open letter published on 1 February in a New York Times blog:
That he got away with what he did to me haunted me as I grew up. I was stricken with guilt that I had allowed him to be near other little girls. I was terrified of being touched by men. I developed an eating disorder. I began cutting myself.
That torment was made worse by Hollywood. All but a precious few (my heroes) turned a blind eye. Most found it easier to accept the ambiguity, to say, 'who can say what happened', to pretend that nothing was wrong. Actors praised him at awards shows. Networks put him on TV. Critics put him in magazines. Each time I saw my abuser's face — on a poster, on a T-shirt, on television — I could only hide my panic until I found a place to be alone and fall apart.
Every week I sit across from women and men who have been sexually assaulted by members of their families. In over 15 years of practice, only two have witnessed the public withdrawal of privilege of their abusers. This is a fair representation of the statistical likelihood of abuse allegations leading to prosecution in Australia. The rest, including the daughters and sons of church officials, police officers, doctors, politicians and celebrities, have had to face the continued public adulation of their abusers alongside their silent suffering or public discrediting
So it both astounds and saddens me that in the outcry about Dylan Farrow's accusations, a common response has been that it's none of our business, that instead it's a matter for the family. Actor Alec Baldwin, asked by Farrow and his own fans to acknowledge that he may have played some part in supporting her accused abuser by continuing to work with him, responded with the following tweet: 'What the f&@% is wrong w u that u think we all need to b commenting on this family's personal struggle?'
Cate Blanchett, also named in Farrow's open letter, responded with sympathy for the family.
Sexual assault is not a family issue. As our own Royal Commission into institutional responses to child abuse so recently tried to teach us, it's a widespread public health issue that touches us all. We are all responsible for the protection of children. Given the current estimated abuse statistics that one in three women and one in six men will be sexually assaulted before the age of 16, it is extremely unlikely that we haven't lived with, worked with, played with or studied with someone who has abused a child.
We are all surrounded by women, children and men who have a history of sexual abuse. If we leave sexual assault up to the family, then we create a large social circle of protection around abusive men and women, and we leave a small number of family members to fight the sexual abuse of children alone.
There has been an enormous amount of speculation about whether these allegations are true. But that is not our question to answer. It is not even our business. Our business when there have been allegations of sexual assault against one of our friends, colleagues, heroes or family members is not to act like amateur detectives.
There is a real ethical concern when allegations that have been denied in court continue to be raised publicly. But at the same time, we need to acknowledge the court system's history of inadequacy in the area of sexual abuse and family violence. We need to be able to forge a difficult balance between making space for ongoing doubt and fuelling public vilification.
Our job can only be to listen when we are called to hear. Farrow has asked to be heard and like many who make accusations of sexual assault, she has been temporarily silenced in two very familiar ways: by speculation about the truth of her accusations and by a kind of terrible decorum that holds family privacy above safety.
We can avoid contributing to the silencing of victims by allowing ourselves to ask questions. Not about veracity but about sexual abuse itself. How can we be of assistance here? What can we do to ensure that we are not complicit? We need to take accusations of sexual assault seriously enough to suspend our belief in talent, prestige, power, beauty and position long enough to hear that our idols may be monstrous at home.
And we need to stop being complicit in the silencing of victims of sexual abuse by pretending it's a family matter. We keep hearing that it takes a community to raise a child. But it only takes one or two people to step back and throw their hands in the air for that child to fall.
Zoë Krupka is a psychotherapist who lectures and supervises research in the master of counselling program at the Cairnmillar Institute in Melbourne. Zoë's blog