What will it take for women to be believed? How much louder must we shout until our voices are heard?
Late on Wednesday, a California judge denied Britney Spears’s long-time request to have her father removed from the conservatorship that has made all major decisions about her life for over a decade.
Just a week prior, the singer had given a passionate, 24-minute statement about her desire to regain control of her life, revealing that under this rule, she has been denied authority of her reproductive system, she’s been refused the right to get married and has been forced to work against her will.
n her own words, she described the agreement as “abusive” and pleaded with the court for adjustments to be made so she can live her own life. #FreeBritney returned to the mouths, Tweets and Instagram captions of the public: now, hearing her fight against the conservatorship for the first time, surely this meant her struggle was edging closer to its end, right?
And yet, nothing’s changed.
On the same day as this gutting announcement, there was another: Bill Cosby was to be immediately released from custody after a Pennsylvania court overturned the ruling that put him there in 2018.
Before his release, the disgraced comic had served two years of a three-to-10 year sentence in a prison near Philadelphia after being found guilty of drugging and molesting former basketball player Andrea Constand.
At the time, many saw this as deserved justice being carried out – not only for Ms Constand, but for the dozens of women who’ve also accused him of sexual assault and rape, as well as the alleged many others who remain in silence. Though it didn’t erase the years of pain experienced, Cosby being sent to prison was some form of a consequence for his actions, something so often denied to victims.
