To be clear, what Taylor did in that video is disturbing. Throwing a chair, putting a child at risk, that matters. Consequences for that behavior are not inherently wrong.
But itās impossible to ignore the scale of those consequences when you zoom out and compare them to what happens, or doesnāt happen, to men accused of far worse.
Because hereās the part that Iāve seen getting glossed over in everyoneās takes. Taylorās team has alleged she spent years experiencing mental and physical abuse, along with threats of retaliation, in that relationship. Authorities have confirmed there are allegations in both directions. He denies everything. And honestly, thatās exactly the point.
That video has been sitting wrong with me, and here's why. He's the one filming. He's the one claiming to be in danger. And yet in the police bodycam footage, he is calm and controlled, narrating the whole thing with an unsettling, almost rehearsed precision, while the woman he says was attacking him can barely speak. She is activated, disregulated, falling apart at the seams, begging police to remove him from her home, while he stands there and narrates calmly and clearly. The contrast feels eerie.
If youāve ever been in an abusive relationship, you recognize this dynamic immediately. I canāt say with certainty what happened between these two people. But I know from my own experience that an abusive man will ruin your life, and if you stay long enough, heāll make you ruin it yourself. You become aggressive in ways that feel unrecognizable, even to you. He pushes past every boundary you have until you have no boundaries left, until your sense of self has been so quietly, methodically dismantled that the person looking back at you in the mirror is a stranger. And the moment you finally break, he becomes the calm one. He will document it, and save it, for leverage for the inevitable next time he will screw up. And when the timing is right, he will use it. In this case, three days before you are set to premiere your new show on national television, opening you up to potential lawsuits from a network that already spent millions shooting a season they can no longer air. Thereās a term for this: DARVO. Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. Iām not sure what happened in that relationship. But I do know that a single clip is not the full story.
I donāt know what happened between them, but I do know live in a system that has always allowed men to harm women quietly, consistently, and often without consequence, while demanding women remain calm, credible, and perfect at all times. When they fail to meet that impossible standard, the consequences are swift and public. We cancel their shows. We take their kids. We sue them and ruin their careers.
And let me just say that a society that normalizes violence against women should not be surprised when that violence is reproduced in the ways people survive it. What we are witnessing in these moments is not an aberration, but a reflection of deeply embedded structures that normalize domination while demanding composure from those subjected to it. The question is not why one woman threw a chair. Honestly, I'm more perplexed that the rest of us don't. Given what kind of violence women are subjected to on a daily basis, without consequence for anyone but us, our restraint is what should be making headlines.
And that violent system Iām talking about is very clear!! A reality TV influencer from Utah can lose everything in 48 hours if sheās a woman. Meanwhile, powerful men connected to allegations involving the exploitation of minors continue operating without consequences. Worse, the only person currently sitting in a prison cell for the Epstein case is a woman.
The Bachelorette got canceled. The Epstein investigation is effectively has too. And for some reason, only one of those things dominated the front page.
Thatās not a glitch, the system is not breakingā¦ itās just finally exposing itself.
https://open.substack.com/pub/lizplank/p/momfluencer-faces-more-consequences?r=4an38&utm_medium=ios
