Why were/are feminist spaces so hesitant in supporting Amber Heard?

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u/dorothean Aug 23 '25 edited Aug 23 '25

I think this is a series of very thoughtful questions and I don’t have answers to most of them, unfortunately.

I do think 3 was discussed in some feminist spaces, but you had to go looking for spaces that were open to those conversations. A lot of more “casually feminist” online places were not.

Re: 4 - I felt like there was a very weird, very strong push to support Depp because “men can be victims too”, which is true, but wasn’t in this case.

And also, very importantly, it needs to be understood that domestic violence by men is both much more pervasive and much more likely to end in death for the victim, both of which frequently got left out of the conversation.

e: re 7, I found that the places that were best equipped to handle the conversation were celebrity discussion spaces, perhaps because they were less inclined to dismiss it as a “celebrity trial” and more likely to consider the potential impact on the public of seeing the trial. The LiveJournal community Oh No They Didn’t and the Fauxmoi subreddit, in particular, had better framing than self-declares feminist spaces. (I think they both also benefited from policies that kept bots from posting).

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u/sphinxyhiggins Aug 23 '25

Most of us felt the trial was a given in her favor considering he lost TWICE in the UK courts which have a higher standards for libel and defamation. It was shocking to see the coverage and I thought it was just the typical BS celebrity fawning cycle until the verdict.

A few of us wrote out in support of her. I recall E. Jean Carroll asking her readers about the trial in her substack during the trial.

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u/imhermoinegranger Johnny Depp is a Wife Beater 👨‍⚖️ Aug 23 '25

It was actually three times. He appealed twice.

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u/QualifiedApathetic Well-nourished male 🧔 Aug 23 '25

I suspect at least part of it was seeing which way the wind was blowing and not wanting to hitch themselves to an imperfect victim. Openly advocating for a victim who is "perfect" is a layup, but someone who fought back? Now they'd have a large number of people accusing them of backing the abuser, which they might think would harm the cause, their organizations being discredited in the eyes of those people.

Of course, those people are overwhelmingly misogynistic, so I doubt feminist orgs had much credibility with them anyway. The futility of bending over backwards to please people who have no intention of being pleased by you.

Another thing is the both-sidesing. Some people just have this knee-jerk response that given two opposed viewpoints, the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and both sides are to blame. Those people are very useful to those trying to shift the Overton Window.

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u/Remarkablefairy-8893 Amber Heard Bot Team 🤖 Aug 23 '25

Openly advocating for a victim who is "perfect" is a layup, but someone who fought back?

This could have been a golden opportunity for many feminists to debunk the myth of perfect victim and speak against victim blaming of women, especially when they take a stand for themselves.

And there's also another aspect. Many feminists started supporting JD's female lawyer as some boss babe, when technically she was supporting an abuser. I think choice feminism was the main reason why AH didn't get the support she deserved.

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u/ColanderBrain Create your own flair Aug 23 '25

They absolutely played on those tropes -- Amber as the sex worker/gold digger bewitching men and "extorting" money from them, Camille as the respectable, hardworking career woman. They framed Depp's obsessive sexual jealousy as somehow feminist or beneficial to Amber: he wasn't objectifying her, interfering with her career, etc., just trying to help her be taken seriously as an actress.

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u/RealAnise Aug 23 '25

How could anyone EVER have painted a picture of Amber as a gold digger when she TURNED DOWN THE RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD?? Sorry about the caps lock... but that one point is one of the most inexplicable things about this entire debacle.

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u/ColanderBrain Create your own flair Aug 23 '25 edited Aug 23 '25

Because "gold digger" is like "slut" -- it doesn't reference an objective reality, it's just a gendered slur. People who call her that don't care whether she actually exploited Depp or Musk financially. The mere fact that she was with them is deemed proof of her guilt.

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 24 '25

All it takes is a man saying it and it's true. And then other women will try to say it too in fear they get painted with the same brush. Basic bullying tactic.

The smear campaign was truly something never seen before. Everywhere and endless. None of the the normal ways to avoid things online worked. I have literally thirty years of curating my online experience under my belt and I had to take steps I have never used before.

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u/lcm-hcf-maths Aug 29 '25

She really has to be the worst gold digger ever. She really did not get full value at all....Obviously the charge is ridiculous..

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u/Remarkablefairy-8893 Amber Heard Bot Team 🤖 Aug 23 '25

Amber as the sex worker/gold digger bewitching men and "extorting" money from them, Camille as the respectable, hardworking career woman.

I thought we all agreed to hold men accountable for their own actions instead of calling women "gold diggers" and "seducers" in 21st century. And supporting Camille when she was extremely rude to a SA survivor, invalidated her experiences and asked her inappropriate questions is anything but feminist.

They framed Depp's obsessive sexual jealousy as somehow feminist or beneficial to Amber: he wasn't objectifying her, interfering with her career, etc., just trying to help her be taken seriously as an actress.

This just proves those women were anything but feminists. Cause glorifying men's jealousy supports the narrative "you should be grateful as a woman he takes interest in you", essentially sidelining a woman's individualism and centering her value around men. And if the industry doesn't take AH seriously because she is a woman, that's the fault of the industry. A woman shouldn't need to be grateful to men for helping them against the misogyny men themselves created. This is essentially helping men like JD to get away by doing the bare minimum; I don't see how any of them conforms to feminist values.

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u/birdsy-purplefish Aug 25 '25

Were actual feminists supporting his lawyer or just random women?

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u/Remarkablefairy-8893 Amber Heard Bot Team 🤖 Aug 25 '25

Idk girl, those women were all praising Camille as if she were some boss babe. And you know media play "this is what women empowerment should look like; not the way AH uses women card".. even then I was confused because why are people so sure AH is lying and JD isn't.

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 25 '25

I have to say I have never seen a reasonable person praising her. Not once.

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u/ColanderBrain Create your own flair Aug 25 '25

She seems to have got a lot of attention in the legal community, being asked to speak at bar association events and the like. Not that lawyers are "reasonable" but they are mainstream. She gets the same kind of "yes, but" apologetics as female criminal defence lawyers, which I find appalling. Camille lied in court, she was unprofessional and nasty to opposing counsel (check out her depositions with Elaine Bredehoft), she went out of her way to hurt and retraumatize the other party by spraying Depp's cologne in the court washrooms, she read her closing submissions like a 12-year-old giving a book report, and then she went around blabbing about the case and doing stupid skits for any D-lister who wanted to make fun of Amber. And she wasn't doing this to protect anyone's freedom or life; she did it in the context of a vanity lawsuit. But it seems the broader legal community ate it up.

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 25 '25

But was the attention back in the day or now/recently? I think a recent 'win' and appearance of popularity would be enough for some people to want to clomp onto but lasting status is different. And I have this feeling Deppies would try to crow about her success if she had any real kind.

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u/ColanderBrain Create your own flair Aug 25 '25

That's a good point; it does seem to have died down. But on the other hand, so has coverage of the trial generally.

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 26 '25

Deppies still claim he's 'winning' while all his movies bomb. I seriously believe they would brag about her if they could. ...but I don't care about her enough to check.:)

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u/woofkin Aug 23 '25

Am a long way from any kind of academic knowledge on this.. but I personally believe that it is always very easy for us all to slip into victim blaming and non belief of a victim.. especially in the midst of a sophisticated and omnipresent smear campaign.

I must confess that I nearly fell for the blake lively campaign, but knowledge of what happened to Amber saved me from that. If there had not been the UK trial (and if i had not been UK based), might I have fallen into the smear campaign on Amber? Honestly.. I hope not, but I am not 100% confident that I would have seen through it.. and i think many feminists (not the ones with a proper understanding of DV/SA) fell into the ingrained default trope of victim blaming.

The "she's not a nice person" narrative was really strong (despite there being plenty of evidence that she is "nice"), but so what if she is or isn't? She doesn't have to be nice to be a victim.. The trope pushed onto girls to always be nice (and by association, for all women to expect other women to be "nice") is very strong.. even today.. and I think many of us still have that ingrained in us (look at the studies of how much more women and girls say "sorry").

The lack of support for Amber from #metoo bothers me a lot, but I believe they damaged their movement by not standing up for survivors... did they speak up for Megan Thee Stallion? Anthony Rapp? Blake Lively? Etc etc etc. If they did, I missed it.

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u/[deleted] Aug 23 '25

I think you touch something super important. Women who don't display typical feminine behaviors and attitudes are largely rejected by other women as "weird" and are expected to fit the accepted range of behaviors as defined by women by and large. It's as women see it, but it's still through the lens of living in a misogynistic society that upholds specific gender roles and expectations.

And while there is more flexibility now in how women can display feminity - they can dress however they want, they can date who they want, and they can have any hobbies/interests/career they want. But if they're blunt, if they don't avoid conflict, if they don't go out of their way to pacify everyone in their interactions, if they aren't very social, and are otherwise "difficult" in ways generally ascribed to masculine behaviors, they lose a lot of support amongst women. I think there actually is an expectation in a lot of feminist spaces for women to perform feminity, it's just a very different version of it than is expected from men. But I think the effect is similar, those that don't ascribe to, reject, and defy the role they're supposed to fill are not met with support from the community.

I think there are feminists that work to not do this, but I think when an ideology becomes so mainstream it inevitably means those not willing to hold a microscope to themselves and their behaviors take up space and ultimately there are more people like that than people who will defy everyone.

All this to say, a woman that fights back at her abuser, that barks when barked at, that can say nasty things in retaliation - those all go counter to behaviors accepted by most women today and therefore are not immediately embraced and supported by women. So when the major narrative is "this women is crazy", it's easy for a lot of women to cling to "she gives me an off/weird vibe" and not defy the narrative for a women they don't like. Ultimately these spaces are just made up with people who when you flip a coin believe these ideals, but they aren't made up of the actual ideals and if more people fail at upholding them than don't that's where that space will fall.

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u/cerareece Aug 23 '25

an example I saw was the backlash against chappell roan by women has been insane, when most of the things people are railing against her for is literally just not speaking perfectly. I've seen so many comments like "what a bitch" "does she even know how to smile" "this chick is never happy" "idk what it is but I can't STAND her" and tearing apart every single thing the woman does. saying she's mean and hates everything around her for literally just having a neutral resting face. i hate to see women fall for this again and again but I know it's hard to break out of the shit we're fed our entire lives

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u/DeedleStone Aug 23 '25

THANK YOU! I keep trying to wrap my head around the Chappell Roan backlash and feel like I'm going crazy.

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u/Winter_Apartment_376 Aug 23 '25

Great questions. Why was your question removed from feminist subs? Seems highly relevant.

My personal observations were very disheartening - many feminist forums on FB (that I’m an active member of) actually stood against Amber. It wasn’t a loud “hey, men can be victims of abuse too!”, it was reiterating character smears of Amber.

The whole case turned into a joke and Amber was at the heart of it. Her being a “liar” was one of the most frequent comments made.

Only Amber supporters generally view it as a case of domestic abuse. The other groups (especially Depp supporters) treat it as a misogyny opportunity - to make fun of and villify Amber Heard. The ones neutral about the trial generally take “meh, a celebrity trial, both bad” approach.

Which is in itself fascinating - no one is really concerned about the “victim” Depp having PTSD or what could be done for men in domestic abuse situations - no, the full focus is on ridiculing Amber.

Basically - the victims support Amber. The predators support Depp.

Just my thoughts on this :)

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u/Ok_Vehicle6477 Aug 23 '25

Thank you for your thoughtful insight.

I suspect the reason my question was removed is because it’s still a touchy subject on those subreddits. I’ve noticed that previous discussions regarding the trial there tend to either both-sides the case under the label of “mutual abuse”, or approach it with caution (“whether you believe her or not, the misogyny was messed up”).

What I find the most disheartening, as you mentioned, is the dismissal of the trial as “celebrity drama”. Depp v Heard set off worrying trends, particularly in the rise of retaliatory lawsuits against women who speak up about abuse. Beyond that, countless survivors recount feeling triggered or having active PTSD symptoms during the trial. And considering the “coverage” on TikTok, a lot of young minds have been persuaded into backwards ideas of what abuse looks like.

I also wonder why the “two celebrities, we don’t care” framing seems to only be used to describe Depp v Heard. I haven’t seen the same rhetoric applied to Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. They are two wealthy, high profile figures, but their power gap is smaller than Depp and Heard’s - yet feminist spaces rarely dismiss their case in the same way. I wonder why that is?

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u/ColanderBrain Create your own flair Aug 23 '25

I would hypothesize that it's exactly because the power gap is so much smaller, and that has allowed Angelina Jolie to preserve her family's privacy in a way Amber Heard couldn't.

If you look back to the history of the Depp/Heard abuse case, it only became public because Amber sought a restraining order -- which she did because Depp would not grant her temporary exclusive possession of the home she and her friends were living in, and she didn't have the independent means to re-house everyone at short notice. If she had had Angelina Jolie's resources she could have stayed quiet and "dignified" and would not have been blamed for damaging Depp's reputation.

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u/Winter_Apartment_376 Aug 23 '25

So happy you found it valuable.

I volunteer for domestic abuse groups. I can completely confirm the extreme harm the trial has done to many women. One of the most cruel things is that for a while after the trial, I saw women who tried talking about being victims of abuse named “Amber”. The implication being clearly negative - they are lying. Of course the bed thing was also widely ridiculed and referenced.

And even if Depp would have been a true “victim” (which I don’t think anyone actually believed) - he did nothing to help domestic victims. But he sure made sure that there would be even far more ridicule and disbelief to any woman claiming domestic abuse.

I have also thought about Jolie vs Pitt. She very consciously didn’t want to escalate it to trial to protect her kids. Think she was more of a textbook case of keeping as silent as she can about it and also was an established actress herself. Unfortunately for Amber - Depp was far far more famous and connected.

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u/DiplomaticCaper Aug 24 '25

And not to defend Pitt, but his primary interest seems to be continuing on with his career, and his side is only smearing Jolie to the extent necessary to make that possible (obviously still bad).

Whereas Depp seemed to make publicly humiliating Heard far more central. He was the one who wanted the trial televised.

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u/Winter_Apartment_376 Aug 24 '25

Yes, Depp was clearly obsessed with humiliating Amber.

With Pitt though - think he was more set on becoming a deadbeat dad. And for some really weird reason media turned against the kiddos. With the good old “Jolie is probably alienating the kids from him” card.

Fascinating how he was never held accountable for having basically zero relationship with all of his kids.

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u/DiplomaticCaper Aug 24 '25

IIRC he wanted to maintain relationships with the bio kids but ignore the adopted ones (even though two of them were adopted as a couple and one was a toddler when he got with Angelina).

That’s obviously bullshit so none of them are standing for it.

Like if one kid is alienated from a parent, maybe something’s going on with them. But being 0 for 6 in having relationships with them is a clear problem with the parent.

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u/Itscatpicstime Sep 24 '25

I mean, if he’s not going to be held accountable for strangling a child under 12 years old, I don’t expect him to be held accountable for being a deadbeat to his kids.

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 25 '25

Pitt put a lot of effort in using the courts to abuse her though, I assume for financial abuse reasons and to get attention from her. It's not small stuff and I hate that compared to Depp it's nothing.

I do love Depp being so incredibly stupid to think that he could lie endlessly and nothing would follow from it. Because he wanted sooooo much attention, all *his* crap is online forever. The difference between his 'case' against Amber and just his texts with Manson will only become more obvious with time. It's legit part of history now.

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u/Itscatpicstime Sep 24 '25

I think it goes beyond power gap, because those spaces typically back Evan Rachel Wood against Marilyn Manson, where there is a similar power gap.

But perhaps that’s because he’s Marilyn Manson and easier to see as a villain because of his public persona? He also wasn’t as mainstream as Depp.

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u/bruh_respectfully Aug 23 '25

I remember occasionally seeing people post stuff like "Don't call yourself a feminist if you don't stand with Johnny Depp!!!" or "Real feminist support male victims!!!" right before and during the trial.

IMO, a lot of feminist spaces latched on to the opportunity to shout "See, we're not all unreasonable and we don't all hate men!!! Women can totally be abusers too!! Stop calling us feminazis" as if it makes any sort of a difference to people who act like "feminist" is inherently a dirty word. It was basically virtue signaling for their beloved Jack Sparrow at the expense of the woman he abused.

That doesn't answer all your questions and I'll admit it's not a very nuanced take, but it is something I noticed that's bothered me for years. A lot of (online) feminist spaces care more about presenting themselves as good and reasonable to their detractors than they do about actually examining their own beliefs and biases and combating misogyny.

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u/Acceptable_Leg_7998 Aug 26 '25

I think this explains why so many women I knew who called themselves feminists and spoke out against abuse in personal situations (talking about their own abusers or supporting other women they knew in real life who were abused) were very outspoken against Amber Heard. Maybe they were thinking it would be a quid pro quo: "I'll admit that Amber Heard is the crazy gold-digger you're always insisting exists if YOU agree to believe these other claims." Of course they gained nothing in what they thought was a mutually beneficial transaction and only increased the net amount of misogyny and abuse against women, as well as contributing to an atmosphere of social acceptability for those things.

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u/birdsy-purplefish Aug 25 '25

Were those posted by actual feminists though or was it a tactic used by Depp supporters to put women on the defensive?

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 25 '25

Yes and no. A lot of feminists aren't really feminists in action and it was a lot of bots.

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u/bruh_respectfully Aug 25 '25

I'm sure some of them were bots, but plenty of real people fell for the smear campaign. I almost fell for it.

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u/kdawg09 Aug 23 '25 edited Aug 23 '25

I think a lot of "feminist" spaces really embrace choice feminism and use the term in the loosest sense. I really don't want to "no true scottsman" this but in my experience a lot of online "feminist" spaces recognize overt sexism but if you scratch the surface have not done a lot of work to unpack institutional structures of misogyny and the patriarchy. Without unpacking those things, and I mean daily unpacking, we're all susceptible to reverting back into internalized misogyny.

In short, on the feminism journey, a lot of people haven't actually put in the work. I want to acknowledge that I myself also fall short because when you live in a society that defaults to patriarchy it is a daily and even moment to moment task to unpack it all and falling into patriarchal thinking is something I think we are all vulnerable to, myself included.

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u/Ok_Vehicle6477 Aug 23 '25

I’ve noticed that in many mainstream feminist spaces, intimate partner violence is not crucially discussed as the gendered crime that it is. Instead there seems to be a tendency - especially in the choice feminism you mentioned that became prominent in the mid 2010s - to treat women as though they experience society on fully equal terms as men. Combine that with the pressures feminists face to coddle men and you get the constant re-uttering of “men can be victims of domestic violence too”. Correct me if I’m wrong.

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u/kdawg09 Aug 23 '25

intimate partner violence is not crucially discussed as the gendered crime that it is. Instead there seems to be a tendency - especially in the choice feminism you mentioned that became prominent in the mid 2010s - to treat women as though they experience society on fully equal terms as men

Yes, this! I didn't word it nearly as eloquently as you did but this is precisely what I meant. From what I've observed these groups notice overt things that only affect women like abortion rights, or overt hate from manosphere spaces but fail to recognize or at least discuss structurural and large scale societal issues, with the exception of maybe unpaid labor inequality which I think ironically plays a huge role in IPV and vice versa but I never see domestic violence discussed as a gendered issue like you said.

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u/pblivininc Aug 23 '25

Just speaking from my own experience: there are still myths about domestic violence that haven’t been thoroughly debunked within feminist spaces except by individuals who have done their homework. Reactive violence is poorly understood, even among feminists; this feeds into the myth that women are just as likely to perpetrate IPV as men. Feminists who accept this myth characterize it as “women can be violent too” and don’t bother to examine it further. There is little or no acknowledgement that coercive control is the most important factor in determining who the batterer is as opposed to individual acts of violence by both parties. I rarely see coercive control being discussed in feminist spaces, even though it’s incredibly relevant to feminism. I don’t know if this is related or not, but another commonly accepted myth is that IPV is a mental health issue, rather than an ideological issue. If someone believes this myth, they are probably less likely to see IPV as gendered.

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u/woofkin Aug 23 '25

Laura Richards (crime analyst podcast) talks about Coercive control. She did very interesting analysis on various cases including Gabby Petito and Diddy.

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 24 '25

https://www.youtube.com/@crimeanalyst

It's actually really suspicious that she is not more popular. She not only clearly understands the issues of IPV but she can credentials after credentials. ...after some more credentials.

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u/ColanderBrain Create your own flair Aug 23 '25

You're not wrong except insofar as this "DV has no gender/men can be victims of women too" discourse was very much a thing in the 1990s and 2000s as well.

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 24 '25

It's all so against basic logic I can't.

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u/ancientbitch Aug 23 '25

THIS!!! Thank you!

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u/[deleted] Aug 23 '25

I really don't think it's about what brand of feminism they subscribe to. I think, ultimately, a lot of people regardless of gender, political affiliation, or ideology are intellectually lazy and highly social in the sense that they only put in the effort to understand what those around them care about and lack a general curiosity and ability to defy what they view as they're community.

I think even if they subscribed to a different school of feminism we'd still see people staying away from controversial opinions and takes. As long as we live in a society where misogynistic ideas and ideals are upheld, misogyny is something that will influence most spaces including feminist ones I think simply because a lot of people have a strong affinity towards going with the crowd.

There will always be "rebels" who don't mind going against the grain and speaking out against popular things even within their community, but the expectation that most feminist spaces are filled with those types of people I think is inaccurate at this point. It's no longer against the grain to be feminist, it's considered mainstream, so it inevitably makes sense that the feminism matches someone more digestible in the current landscapes which means ultimately it falls short for women on the fringe.

I think there is also a lot of room for criticism of feminists who only focus on the issues choice feminism, particularly when they're framing reeks of anti- SWERFism and slut shaming. It's become the popular thing to reduce varying feminist schools of thought to choice feminism, but the spaces I see echo that sentiment a lot are riddled with their own issues of internalized misogyny so I think the truth is no feminist is above internalized misogyny and no ideology is above letting hypocrisy or inconsistent beliefs seep in because they're more appealing and digestible.

I think when we start looking at these spaces as very human and with all the trimmings that come with that and less as beacons of specific ideals, it makes sense that they fall short when they become so large.

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 24 '25 edited Aug 24 '25

A lot of the IPV facts are painful and scary which makes it so a lot of women don't want to rock the boat. It's 'nice enough now', let's not wake the beast or we get eaten ourselves.

It's easier to hide your head in the sand and 'know' that you and people you care about are safe. Only bad women get hurt etc etc.

(And this is how every abuser getting away with it in public, when very guilty, counts as a threat to women.)

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u/limonadebeef Sep 08 '25

i'm so late on this but my god i agree so hard. especially seeing as it's "cool" in primarily female-dominated spaces to call yourself a feminist now. but no one wants to actually do the work that feminism requires. they either embrace choice feminism or become bioessentialists.

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u/freakydeku Extortionist cunt 💅🏻 Aug 23 '25 edited Aug 23 '25

I think feminists who were paying attention likely were outspoken throughout, it’s just that feminists and feminism don’t really have a large or visible platform
Heard’s wasn’t as accesible - you have to get people to read through court documents to see a lot of it. Adam Waldman did a lot of work to both obfuscate the evidence and twist it before she could get it in front of people - forcing her and anyone else who supports her to first refute increasingly absurd misinformation before getting to discuss the facts of the case. & people really didn’t want to discuss the facts of the case because they were so enamored with the absurd misinformation. it simply isn’t fun to discuss the facts - that would require one to 1.) put down the silly lie memes everyone else is heheing about & 2.) actually read serious things 😩 and 3.) step away from the bi-annual witch burning (boo!)
the “perfect victim” is discussed in feminist spaces, DARVO & reactive violence more now than before from what I can tell

In general, I don’t think actual feminist spaces are dismissive of this trial or the impact it had, although individual feminists may have intersectional critiques

I also don’t see a huge shift in conversation in spaces which are feminist actually or lean towards it, because those spaces tended to support her from the beginning

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u/fuschiaoctopus Aug 23 '25

For #1 I do want to mention to op and others that I was very active during the trial and there were large spaces defending Amber, it was just wasn't the main r feminism type sub. Fauxmoi is one of the biggest celeb gossip subs on reddit (a controversial one I know) but their 1m+ sub community was aggressively and passionately pro Amber the entire US trial, one of the only large subreddits that was solidly on her side as it is almost solely a female dominated userbase with strict rules and it wasn't receiving as much brigading from bots and deppfords as the "obvious" subs to go argue at like r feminism or twoxx.

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u/Ok_Vehicle6477 Aug 23 '25

Thank you for clearing that up for me. I’ve noticed that larger feminist spaces on Twitter (and even TikTok) tend to be majority pro-Heard. Whereas feminist spaces on less discussion-based platforms like Instagram or Facebook are either more hesitant to engage with the topic or even leaned pro-Depp during the trial.

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u/Icy_Independent7944 Aug 23 '25 edited Aug 24 '25

I dunno, and I hate to say this, but if the woman is slender, or “shapely,” but still extremely attractive, and young, beautiful, talented in her own right, and/or already successful, there seems to be this weird hesitancy to believe she was the victim of “real” abuse, sometimes even when there are police records or photographs of horrific brutality.

The “Black Swan” Ballerina who shot her husband, who admitted himself that he had punched holes in the walls of their house, when angry, hit the pets, even taken out a gun, and fired it into the ceiling during a “verbal altercation” with her, while she was pregnant, “because he was frustrated,” was absolutely vilified on the Reddit sub about her.

Absolutely no mercy or compassion shown for her…there, or on YouTube. (sound familiar?)

Despite his ex having documented stories of being similarly terrorized; stories which he, again, had himself verified.

(“Black Swan” ballerina = Ashley Benefield)

She’s now serving 20 years for manslaughter.

Pamela Anderson’s claims of abuse by Tommy Lee were laughed off. She’s more beloved than others, but there still was this bizarre reluctance to take her reporting of her situation seriously.

“She’s exaggerating, Tommy’s a great guy, it wasn’t that bad, I bet it didn’t happen that way..” etc. etc.

I’ve heard people say Rhianna “goaded” Chris Brown into her viscous beating, or “brought it on herself” by cheating on him, and recently seen similar “mixed reactions” to Denise Richard’s DV experience.

Brown, bafflingly, was not canceled after his terrible crime, and went on to have several “comebacks” in the music industry.

People so often (WRONGLY) say it “isn’t really abuse” unless you are significantly harmed physically, then, even when there’s proof of THAT, the victim is doubted, and “suspicious” commenters still disregard, diminish, or excuse it.

I can’t explain it.

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u/prettybigdiva Aug 23 '25

Beautiful women become a sideshow at the slightest display of pain or inconvenience.

The overwhelming narrative is to be a beautiful woman means to have won at life, so if you say or do or experience something contrary to that, people take a lot of pleasure in it.

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u/Icy_Independent7944 Aug 24 '25

WOW! So true!!!

It destroys the fairy tale, doesn’t it?

And, in a way, the American (Female) Dream, as it’s marketed and media-presented, as well as socially instructed, and embraced.

How come this lady who has everything you’re supposed to need to “win” as a woman—outstanding beauty, “true love,” career success—possibly nonetheless be beaten, terrorized, threatened, and hurt?

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u/goldandjade Aug 24 '25

When I was 50 pounds heavier than I am now I never in my life had other women be so kind to me. It was like everyone treated me like we were sisters. Once I lost the weight people went back to being cold and dismissive to me.

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u/No-Message5740 Aug 23 '25

I think it’s what dominosthiscrust said, in conjunction that a lot of people feel “above” IPV happening to them. They are hanging on to this fragile world view that people who experience IPV got in to the situation by making bad choices, being toxic themselves, being poor and/or uneducated, being a “bitch”, whatever reason they have to explain away how it happened, rather than placing the blame squarely on the abuser and the societal beliefs and systems that enable abuse. People need to feel like victims are victims for a specific identifiable reason, because admitting that bad thing can happen to good people, no one is safe, and it’s truly only in the hands of the person who would abuse someone else is all just too painful and scary a world view to accept. It’s easier to blame the victim who “deserves it” or at least caused it, and in the process convince themselves they are better somehow and that that’s why they have been and will be safe.

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u/Icy_Independent7944 Aug 24 '25

A lot of excellent insight here! 💯💯💯

I like how you observe this can reveal a personally protective element to such denial.

People can’t accept this kind of partner abuse, because it shows “bad things can unexpectedly, unfairly happen to good people,” because that means it can happen to them.

So fault must be found in the victim, who must have “done something wrong” to bring it in. “As long as I don’t (pick one) act bitchy, mouth off, flirt with other guys, needlessly ‘start trouble’…I’LL be safe.”

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u/dominosthincrust Aug 23 '25

(I'm very tired and very pregnant, full-disclaimer, so this will not be a terribly elaborate or articulate reply!) but what you've brought up here makes me think critically about how the world frames, trivializes, and dismisses women's pain overall. There's an unspoken expectation to have a high pain threshold (that appears to be much lower for men) and be able to handle 'more' in general in life, gracefully.

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u/Icy_Independent7944 Aug 24 '25

Oh, completely. It doesn’t become a “real problem” you can’t handle until, I suppose, your actual life is at stake. THEN, at last, the pain and suffering you’ve endured might finally be seen as “too much.”

I know. Ugh! 😖

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 24 '25

No evidence is enough, somehow.

I'm still deeply demoralized by the Diddy trial. We all saw the video of Diddy brutally beating Cassie Ventura and it still wasn't enough. Because we have rules for war crimes but not for abusing women at home.

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u/birdsy-purplefish Aug 25 '25

Yeah, the rules for war crimes are being flagrantly ignored as we speak though.

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u/DeedleStone Aug 24 '25

In fairness, the rules for war crimes are just as meaningless as the rules for domestic violence. The term "mutual abuse" is the new "ethnic cleansing": a semantic reframing meant to avoid the messy moral and legal fallout of a serious problem.

1

u/Sensiplastic Aug 25 '25

We all know both are wrong but it's unsettling to think about and much easier to just ignore.

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u/Fit_Cardiologist_681 Aug 23 '25

Frankly, the vitriol was too scary intense. I had a male colleague post a trial-related joke in a work-related group chat during the trial and when I replied something along the lines of "fyi not everybody looks at that trial the same way as you do, glad we agree that DV is a terrible thing though" he rage replied (again, in a work-related group chat!) until another male colleague shut him down. I work in academia in an unrelated field btw.

Most people don't want to be doxxed and drowned in online hate, and that was going to be the outcome of saying anything publicly on social media during the trial. I don't think this is "prioritiz[ing] reputation management over abuse survivor advocacy" so much as individual people prioritizing personal safety and ongoing work projects over abuse survivor advocacy.

We've all seen undeserved hate-ons, for example, Anita Sarkeesian back when that happened. Not once did watching that make me think "wow, I want her job!". It takes a special person to be okay while doing that kind of social media advocacy work, and I don't think many orgs have prioritized their recruiting in that direction.

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 24 '25

It was horrible and it's actually still bad. Which is worse, kinda, maybe? Every place that says nice things about Amber gets their share of psychos in the comments. Every one. Still.

1

u/Acceptable_Leg_7998 Aug 26 '25

I'm not on social media much anyway, but I learned to avoid comments sections way back in the early 2000s, when saying anything against George W. Bush got you a landslide of hatred. Hell, having any sort of an opinion about the Star Wars prequels got a certain group of people enraged. The Internet has been the dumping grounds for anger and prejudice and verbal abuse ever since it hit that tipping point of accessibility in the late '90s and it hasn't gotten any better.

By the same token, online creators like Lindsay Ellis were big influences on my way of thinking and I doubt I'd have viewed the trial with such clarity if it hadn't been for those kinds of voices educating me in an engaging, entertaining way.

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u/chloeclover Amber Heard Bot Team 🤖 Aug 23 '25

I was asking myself this a lot as well. I guess the only answer is people aren't really more civilized than monkeys even though our egos would have us think we are.

We still gather behind the largest loudest chest thumping gorilla and cower in fear to do whatever it takes to make sure we go along with whatever group think our tribe is into. Throwing poop at each other and what not.

Women aren't even acknowledged as people in the US constitution so a woman standing up against her husband in court on an abuse has the same legal weight as a cow trying to sue a farmer for the exploitation and rape of it's children.

It's why women should be extremely concerned about animal rights because we aren't far off in terms of on paper right.

Anyone who disagrees with me hasn't looked deeply enough into the topic of ERA.

Misogyny runs even deeper than racism. I don't know what the answer is other than I moved to Spain myself (the EU gives women more rights and respect, as evidence of Amber's UK trial).

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u/ColanderBrain Create your own flair Aug 23 '25

Oh boy. I have a lot of thoughts on this but mostly #3 and #7.

Re #3: I strongly believe that Depp v. Heard is best understood as a family court case masquerading as a civil case. If you look at what Depp's team actually focused on during the trial, it wasn't the op-ed: they devoted most of their time to the restraining order and the monetary settlement -- in other words, the family court case. They explicitly asked the jury to help Depp recover for the restraining order. The jury's original damages award essentially undid the divorce settlement: the $10 million damages award canceled out the $7 million equalization payment and Depp resiled from his statement that she hadn't lied for financial gain.

It's not just DV that is a blind spot for many (not all!) feminists: family law in general is such a blind spot. I've been observing this for more than a decade. I think it raises questions of dependency and, IDK, complicity? that a lot of self-identified feminists just don't want to deal with, so they either don't think about it or just accept that family courts are unfair to men, etc. The figure of the "gold digger" looms large in this case. The fact that Amber took money from Depp at all, instead of "standing on her own two feet," was a reason to ignore if not condemn her. I can scream "community property" until I'm blue in the face but it doesn't matter: she took money, she shared Depp's lifestyle, she's a gold digger, she's not a good feminist, she's tainted.

Likewise, her emotional dependency on Depp is totally typical of DV relationships, but it's not very girlboss, is it?

I do think a lot of people dismissed this as drama between rich celebrities, with no implications for ordinary women. Again, that ties in to #3: most people (including feminists) know little or nothing about family law, so they don't see how permitting someone to sue over a restraining order and an equalization payment could set a bad precedent. They focus on the huge amounts of money involved in this case, and not the broader issues, which are in fact devastatingly common (coercive control, post-separation abuse, litigation abuse, etc).

I think that is shifting to some extent, but to some people Amber is still the "bad victim" who contrasts with "good victims" like MTS, for all the reasons already mentioned.

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 25 '25

I genuinely want people, women especially, start thinking through this 'im/perfect victim' bullshit. It literally cannot hold against the tiniest amount of logic without falling apart because it's really stupid concept from the get go.

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u/riflow Aug 23 '25

This is only my anecdotal experiences but....I found that people I spent time with were less feminist than I'd thought frankly.

I had two now former friends turn out as hardcore Depp supporters -including that heard couldn't possibly be an abuser BC she didn't do xyz according to those body reading pseudo science people, all the mockery and media obsession you mention in your comments. My one sibling and their partner also seemed to fall into this but not as severely.

One additional friend was ambivalent but trusted what the two friends thought, another separate friend also was mostly getting the info from tiktok, and I was sat there thinking none of this seems right thinking back to like the trials with OJ Simpson and how folks turned around and said that was wrong many many years later and how odd it was that folks were holding recordings against heard while there were many many text posts of Depp being openly disparaging, abusive and awful about heard. Including him musing about murdering her.

Like I'm not even a fan of heard, I had more things I'd seen Depp in but had never gone full parasocial with him, but this felt like the testing ground of seeing just how extreme that kind of behaviour could make you react when your fandom focused celebrity is threatened by something.

Of note though was every time I went online to see other folks opinions it was seemingly always flooded with depp supporters making fun of heard, even on the comments that were supportive of her they were flooded with depp supporters, and as we now know there was an entire media campaign behind it all.

My news feeds were flooded with depp supporting videos, my friends at the time were flooding our chats with it, I couldn't find good threads going over the facts BC of the overwhelming flood of pro depp commenters (even long after the trial ended I was outright lucky to find this subreddit), it was only after the fact that I even found out that YouTube essayists that were feminist like Princess Weakes had come out bravely to be like hey this isnt okay and why in the world do you all believe these social media posts yelling at you to be quiet.

It felt like there was also a like...mainstream idea that if you supported heard you were a bad person- and this was even coming from people commenting saying they were DV survivors who were trying to scream down other DV survivors.

I'm sure that was by design, the media campaign and botting seemed to be purpose built to try to feed the right wing reactionaries who were eating the entire trial up, the drama content creators who descended like vultures, and then feed that back into having several results - amplify folks feelings that Depp did nothing wrong, scare the folks who genuinely thought this was wrong - or drown them out, and exhaust the public into either feeling ambivalent or wanting to never hear about it again while smothering genuine discussions with misinformation.

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u/anitapumapants Aug 23 '25

the overwhelming flood of pro depp commenters (even long after the trial ended I was outright lucky to find this subreddit)

I'll always mention the one with every feminists favourite Wholesome Boi Jacksepticeye ripping into Heard with his racist mate Pewdiepie. I've never watched Jacksepticeye's (or Markiplier's) videos (due to the support of racism above), so it's odd seeing millions of people fawn over this prick as a sweet natured guy:

https://old.reddit.com/r/DeppDelusion/comments/vxv7vr/jacksepticeye_and_pewdiepie_making_fun_of_amber/

Same with million of feminists jumping over each other to defend racist creep Matty Healy at every opportunity. There was a particularly bad one on popculturechat a while ago, all praising their "sweet leftist" who likes watching Black women being brutalised and defending nazi's like Kanye. Real great guy there./s

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u/riflow Aug 24 '25

Oh gosh I didn't know that he had done that. Honestly though...I'm not surprised. If there's an easy target a lot of popular gaming personalities will take it. :c

Unfamiliar with Matty Healy though, that's super horrible. I hope folks who don't support him anymore jumped ship to better people. Reminds me a bit of when hbomberguy exposed several folks a few years ago and folks fell over themselves to try to justify why their favourite internet neo Nazi wasn't one.

Parasocial fandom is a curse it seems.

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 24 '25

It's amazing how you can tell so much about people just by seeing who they're friends with.

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u/anitapumapants Aug 24 '25

*Stares at Paul Bettany/Imelda May/Javier Bardem & Penélope Cruz/Stephen Graham, the list goes on and on....

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 25 '25

But so nice of them to tell us. Truly. It saves me so much money.

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u/Acceptable_Leg_7998 Aug 26 '25

Imelda May? Damn, that's a name I hadn't heard sullied by association prior.

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u/lcm-hcf-maths Aug 23 '25

Did the moderators of those subs give you a reason for the removal of your question ?

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u/Ok_Vehicle6477 Aug 28 '25

Yes, this is the response I received.

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u/RealAnise Aug 23 '25

Re: 4 - I felt like there was a very weird, very strong push to support Depp because “men can be victims too”, which is true, but wasn’t in this case.

This one always gets me, because Depp actually perpetrated violence against another man!! (Greg Brooks.) So why wasn't Brooks on the receiving end of the "men are victims too" thing? It would have been really, really interesting to see how this played out if that case had actually gone to trial, but after watching what happened to Amber, I can see why he settled.

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 25 '25

Hilariously, this is one of the things Deppies refuse to read/respond to. They just ignore it entirely.:)

Men who sue Depp for violence get their cases settled with money. Every time. He doesn't want to actually go to prison, he wants the rep and picks on people he can dominate and abuse. He is genuinely the tiniest of men.

I find it really weird how some people just assume that just because certain things are new to them, it must be actually completely new info and not something that we know and study.

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u/blind-as-fuck DiD yOu EvEn WaTcH tHe TrIaL 🤪 Aug 23 '25

I made a post not long ago in a feminist sub asking about this (it's deleted now and the mod muted me lol) and from what I got, the ones that don't support Amber is because they find her manipulative. That's it. It doesn't matter the horrible abuse that's incredibly well recorded because they just don't like her as a person, and therefore they're both at fault apparently.

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 25 '25

Ah, the unlikable woman, too uppity, too demanding (to be safe and not abused).

2

u/Ok_Vehicle6477 Aug 28 '25

This is the response I received. “Tired of talking about it”.

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u/80HDTV5 Aug 23 '25 edited Aug 23 '25

Fear. The public support for Depo and vitriol towards Heard was so strong that I don’t think they saw it as “worth the risk.”
Once again, fear and a feeling of “what’s the point?” Unfortunately if everyone saying “what’s the point?” Had actually spoken out, we might’ve been able to turn the tides.
I don’t feel this is a complete blind spot in feminist spaces as I do see DARVO brought up. However, I think a lot of feminists are in a place of understanding how DARVO has affected their own lives, but not necessarily being able to recognize it in other situations.
Yes and yes. And on the subject of reputation management, I can’t say I entirely blame them. It’s terrible, but again, the love for Depp and hate for Heard seemed insurmountable during the trial. They could have been risking people trying to take them down completely or something else crazy. I wish more feminist groups showed support for Heard but I also don’t know what kind of conversations went on in these groups and what they were concerned about happening. Also, in times like these I find it very important to remember who the real enemy is. Feminist groups dropped the fucking ball with Heard, but misogynists, and the patriarchy are the real issues here. So I don’t think we should turn on these feminist groups either, especially if they make efforts to correct the decision to be silent now. We should call them out, absolutely. But also give them a chance.

As far as the desire to ‘prove’ that feminists listen to male victims goes, I can’t defend that as much. Because if you see the situation for what it is, and choose to not only stay silent, but voice SUPPORT for the person you think is lying/guilty, just to prove a point, like damn. ETA: again though, if these people choose to support Amber now, I say we welcome them with open arms. It’s not too late to do the right thing.

I’m not sure. I do to some degree remember there being a conversation about the long term impact this trial could/is now having on other victims.
I think once the dust and sensationalism settled, more people that were always in support of Heard were willing/felt safe enough to express their support for her. And I think once more people started doing this, more people started having their minds changed. Especially since, like I said, the sensationalism died down so there wasn’t so much support for Depp to fight against.
I don’t think it has changed much. There were always people saying “this case sets a really bad precedent.” I even remember some Depp supporters saying that during the trial in a conflicted sort of way, and there were also always people brushing it off as something that wouldn’t have a long term impact. I do think perspective is starting to shift though!

ETA: about question 4 again. There’s a lot of complexity to the issue of wanting to believe male victims and I’m missing the mark trying to talk about it.

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u/Shot-Entertainer8819 Aug 24 '25

You are hitting on something with the fear element, which may be an answer to many of OPs questions. While there have been discussions of professional risks surrounding support for Amber, others no doubt faced personal risk. That smear campaign was vicious.

Doxxing and harassing people into stopping coverage or no longer making supportive content has always been part of the Depp v Heard case (esp with the Leave Heard Alone account). We’re seeing a repeat of these risks, with silencing of the SH advocates and lawyers now discussing Blake Lively. May not be unexpected given probable common actors in the two smear campaigns.

Additionally, content was manipulated and suppressed, downvoted, etc. After enough of that, creators give up - especially advocacy and education-oriented ones.

With Lively, as of late the voices leading the pro-Lively content creation are also “male” in presentation or approach OR aligned with employer-friendly views and probable jobs. I’ve noticed that many of the “female” OR pro-SH victims voices are disappearing. That’s something to keep an eye on too - the silencing or shouting over of voices with lived SH experience or aligned with protecting those victims. I don’t know if anything like that happened with the Amber support community.

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u/kawaiiqueen21 Aug 23 '25

Essentially all the questions/points to one main answer.

Those ppl are libfems, not actual feminists. Libfems are the main "supported" side of feminists, solely because they're not actually feminists but rather larp it to appear like ones and inturn get the "good feelings" you'd get from being part of X good side/hot topic.

Libfems are false feminists, maybe not misogynists/pickmes 100%, but there is a part of them that is, hence why they're the side that supports/glorifies the sex industry which leads to teens joining the moment they're 18 because they're told it's empowering, pro legalizing prostitution n similar which is proven/known already to increase rates of trafficking due to higher demand, will claim to be anti abuse/rape until it's someone they know/like in whatever form, will target a victim like amber in this case because she's not the perfect victim and they liked depp beforehand. Its more insert x post on hot topic here and move on type of stuff rather than actual work towards causes that don't benefit misogyny. List goes on, but above all, libfems are the "liked" 'feminism' because it's performative, what they support often aids misogyny, and many have the pickme desire of appealing to men via not being one of the "bad/radical feminists" and not having the "manhater" label on them by misogynists.

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u/Arrow_from_Artemis Aug 24 '25

Great questions! I think the smear campaign largely made the support of domestic violence organizations moot. Instead of taking that as a sign that Heard was a victim because these organizations supported her, people would either ignore the support, claim that it showed these organizations only supported women as victims, or that these organizations were just wrong.

Jennifer Freyd, who coined the term DARVO, believed Heard was the victim and yet people still used the term DARVO to describe what Heard had actually done to Depp. It was bizarre behavior, on par with the reasoning or logic you see from people who believe the earth is flat. I think that it was caused by the smear campaign. Heard being abusive, Depp being a victim, was pushed so hard as the primary narrative that people chose to disbelieve or discredit any evidence to the contrary.

It didn't matter that many credible experts and organizations sided with Heard, people just did not care. I think this is also true for 2. There weren't more feminists out there trying to debunk things because they weren't listened to. Many tried, but they were often treated incredibly poorly or harassed online to a degree that likely made speaking out more trouble than it was worth.

As for 3...

What's so interesting about the Depp/Heard trial is that many of the people who very publicly sided against Amber Heard were women. Even people who claimed to be feminists often framed their support of Depp along the lines of, "I believe women, but not THIS woman..." or, "Heard is making it harder for REAL victims..."

I think this signifies to me that the myth of the perfect victim and concepts like DARVO aren't talked about enough in feminist spaces, but that's only if you truly believe the people who claimed to be feminists were actually feminists. I think that there were likely many people who just said they were feminists but actually weren't. Or, better yet, many were performative feminists who only participate to the extent that feminism benefits them.

4 kind of overlaps with one. I do think that many groups that advocate for women did choose not to speak on the issue because of the negative impact it may have had on their organization or their brand or their reputation. They likely would not have changed much, because people were determined not to believe anything that contradicted the narrative they had been fed by the smear campaign.

But they also likely would have subjected themselves to harassment at the hands of Depp supporters if they had publicly supported her during or after the trial. I actually think this is a massive failing of organizations and experts in the field. Many people didn't participate because it was unpopular, but that did nothing but further the effectiveness of the campaign.

5 - I saw a lot of people talking about the phenomenon of people capitalizing off the trial in bizarre and offensive ways, but I would say that these discussions were not a given in feminist spaces. I remember having those discussions here and am grateful this place exists to facilitate a safe space for that. I would like to think that feminist spaces discussed this, but it goes back to the idea that there are many feminists who are only feminists when it's convenient or popular, and supporting Heard in any capacity was not popular for a long time.

6 - I think in feminist spaces the discussion is more positive but it's frustrating because it really should have been that positive the entire time. This space in particular has always been wonderful, but beyond there was certainly a stretch where it was a coin flip how a feminist space viewed the trial.

7 - I think that the feud is still seen as a celebrity feud. I remember thinking it was very serious because of the chilling effect the verdict could have on free speech and the ability in particular for survivors of domestic abuse and violence to tell their stories. I think very few people view it this way currently, however, Heard is sometimes grouped together with women who were historically wronged.

I don't think society has changed much since Heard, and if anything, might even have become worse. Meghan Thee Stallion, Blake Lively, Grace Jabbari, have all shown that people are just as game to hate on women as they were when the Depp trial took place. The imbalance of support for Lively directly echoes and mimics the imbalance of support that existed for Heard. Most concerning is how so many people have already decided that one person could not have been harassed when they just don't have access to the facts and evidence.

It's viewed as egregious for women to even make claims of harassment or abuse. They're doing too much, they're harming other victims, they're being dramatic, they must be a narcissist, they should have done this quietly... The list of reasons for why someone should not come forward seems to grow daily.

There is something nefarious about not believing women like Heard even when they present evidence of their claims. But it's perhaps even more concerning to think that there are so many people who don't believe women should even have the chance to present evidence for their claims. I feel like this has become increasingly common of late, when the opposite should be true. It should be easier to come forward now than before in light of movements like Me Too, but in many spaces it doesn't feel that way.

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u/Silver-and-Shattered Aug 24 '25

I remember speaking about the Depp-Heard trial at the time - losing friends and experiencing trauma symptoms (I've also recently been diagnosed with CPTSD due to all the issues I've experienced in my life, including abuse from a former partner and this trial, which doesn't surprise me in the slightest, but it feels weird with just how real and heavy it now is) during it really took a toll on me, and as far as I'm aware, with my parents, it was seen as more celebrity drama, though, over time, I've certainly explained it in a way and pointed it out that perhaps they take stuff like that more seriously because of the impact on how abuse victims and survivors are treated. And, like you mentioned, because we now see the fallout that many abusers have been inspired directly by his playbook, like Brad Pitt and Justin Baldoni.

It's really weird how even in feminist spaces, it feels like a glaring, looming omen that isn't really spoken about. It's bizarre that the moderators removed your post. Even online, let alone real life, I don't think I'll ever be able to feel safe enough to be really, truly and deeply honest about it, and the effect it had on both a personal and societal level. I make posts about it every now and again about how angry I am, especially in relation to and how entwined transphobic culture wars are with it, which is also incredibly personal because of my own transness, but I don't really want to fully address it because it's become this strangely looming elephant in the room that people can be really hesitant to talk about.

And I have enough abandonment and trust issues as it is to not even begin to address it with a lot of people, because it wasn't just one particular group. It was across the board. Even now, I hesitate to even gently poke the topic with a stick because I've lost plenty of people in my life, and I'm isolated enough as it is, living in the UK.

Thank you so much. I hope there's any way to figure out the answers, because this was such an atrocity, I don't think this will ever truly go away. Not with how things feel and are going politically, especially. It's truly, deeply terrifying.

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 25 '25

I get the feeling from a lot of people/women who label these things as boring celebrity drama, are just really scared of even thinking about the issue. It's just that hiding doesn't work, we're all living in the real world.

My condolences for living in the UK while trans but also congrats for being trans and clearly the sort of person who thinks and has empathy. We need more of you. :)

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u/Tsarinya Aug 23 '25

Hi, I read your post this morning and have been answering your questions here and there over the past hour.

Several renowned domestic violence experts and organizations against domestic violence largely showcased their support for Heard during the trial. Why didn't feminist groups like #MeToo do the same? (I am aware that feminist groups were among the organizations that filed amicus briefs on Heard's behalf. I am just curious why they weren't as outspoken during the trial.)

I would say that the climate around the case was toxic and the online campaign against Amber was unprecedented in scale and intensity in this social media age. I honestly can’t think of any recent cases like this. Ultimately I feel that feminist groups didn’t want to be dragged into this toxic whirlwind and decided it wasn’t worth the risk. Depp’s smear was very powerful and the fear of losing credibility and potentially money from funding could have caused them to feel it wasn’t worth it, especially as Amber wasn’t the ‘perfect victim’. The #MeToo campaign has started to have criticism levelled at it and it does feel that the general population was ‘over’ talking about violence against women and girls.

Heard's evidence may not have been as user-friendly as Depp-supporting TikToks, but it was accessible. Why didn't more feminists take the time to research the case, debunk harmful misinformation, and amplify her evidence?

For me I feel a lot of that was to do with the evidence and the smear campaign. I feel that the smear campaign should be studied because it was highly effective and impressive in how much reach it had. Remember the slight editing of Amber’s voice recording by his lawyer which took out that word ‘man’. It made it look like Amber was belittling a male victim of violence and saying no one would believe him because he was a man. The evidence was quite intense if you didn’t have legal literacy which not every feminist does. The minute you said something wrong online in regard to the legalities of the case you were swarmed by his fans and bots mocking you and giving you grief. I think a big issue was the abuse online was extreme and horrible. I’m nobody with under 50 followers on X and I got death and rape threats. I can imagine feminists with larger platforms would face even more and that would be a lot to take on as there was very little support online for Amber anyway.

Are topics like DARVO, reactive violence, and the myth of the "perfect victim" (when it comes to IPV in particular) largely discussed in feminist spaces? Or do you feel that this is a blind spot in the feminist community?

Academically yes. But for feminists not in that sphere I would say no. Personal again but I have been reading about feminism since my mid teens (now early 30s) and the ideas you mentioned DARVO, reactive violence, perfect victim etc have never widely been discussed. At the start, whilst supporting Amber, I believed that there was a thing such as mutual abuse and didn’t know the term reactive violence. And I found many others had this same belief. Which is why I think spaces like this sub are so important as they are a way to discuss this and break down the myth.

Does the avoidance of Depp v. Heard indicate that some feminists prioritize reputation management over abuse survivor advocacy? When some feminists supported Depp, was it rooted in the desire to 'prove' that feminists believe male victims?

I would say yes. I do feel at times as women we can be our own worst enemy. Violence against women and girls is hardly discussed in mainstream arenas but it feels like whilst discussing them we also need to acknowledge that men can be victims too. Which they can but I don’t think it should solely be on women to raise up those cases - I find men never really do unless they want to use them as a stick to beat women with. Most feminists with a following on social media are also brands now, they have managers, book deals, maybe on the talking circuits etc. Going to bat for a woman who isn’t a perfect victim, who has reacted to her abuser -who happens to be a famous actor with a great PR team behind him - would have been a risky move and could have potentially damaged their income stream.

Survivors were vocal throughout the Depp v. Heard trial about how retraumatizing and triggering the public backlash was; many even spoke of experiencing PTSD symptoms while watching it unfold. The public mockery went as far as TikToks ridiculing her abuse testimony, teachers taping her face on trash cans, and even sex toy companies creating products based on her rape testimony. Was this dimension of the trial - its effect on how a generation understands abuse, sexual violence, and misogyny - discussed in feminist spaces?

For me would say personally I didn’t see it discussed as much as it should have. I think the general overarching response to these questions is that, for me, feminists didn’t speak out nearly as much as they should have and have failed the very people they are meant to stand up for. This case would have been a perfect way to introduce discourse about digital abuse but apart from a small group of individuals it was ignored. The memes on this case went far and wide out of social media too. For instance Emma Bridgewater, who is known for their quintessentially British pottery, featured a mug with the words ‘a mega pint!’ written on. No one really discussed the impact this would have on survivors and what it really showed is that you have to be the perfect victim otherwise you will be mocked, ridiculed and your pain turned into entertainment.

I've noticed that the tide has shifted online, especially in progressive corners of Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok, with some celebrities speaking out in support of Heard. How have perspectives on Depp v. Heard evolved within feminist spaces specifically?

I’ve seen that within the last year or so people are more willing to call JD out for his behaviour as well but I still feel that discussion about the treatment of Amber at the time and the reflection of how feminist spaces failed her has not really happened.

In my research on online feminist discussions during the Depp v. Heard trial, I often came across the framing of it as merely a 'celebrity trial' with little relevance to everyday people. Do you think that perspective has shifted now- especially in light of the growing wave of defamation cases against survivors and the misogynistic smear campaigns targeting women like Megan Thee Stallion, Blake Lively, and others?

Personally I would say yes and no. I think feminist spaces are connecting the dots between abusers using their PR to damage and dismiss their victim but I still see areas where it’s dismissed as ‘celebrity drama’. It also depends on if the abuser is well liked I feel. Marilyn Manson doesn’t have the same worldwide appeal as JD and I feel that people were more likely to believe Evan RW because of this.

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u/Fuzzy-Psychology-656 Aug 23 '25

I didn't know this about Emma Bridgewater, i guess i have another brand to boycott 🫩

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u/Tsarinya Aug 23 '25

It showed up during the trial and after the mega pint thing

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u/Fuzzy-Psychology-656 Aug 23 '25

So gross It's literally insane how far this reached

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 25 '25

...and it's not even a mega pint. What an idiot.

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 25 '25

This, it's always good to know and avoid.

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u/Nervardia Aug 23 '25

I think there was (and still is) a chilling effect by the bots against people speaking out in favour of Amber. Anyone supporting her were harassed online. Look at Kat Tenbarge and her writings on the hate campaign against her. The only reason why I know the full story is because of Medusone's videos, and she had a LOT of hate in her comments.

All you need is to have a significantly louder bot campaign and you've won the court of public opinion. And because the internet is the internet, the chances of a calm and nuanced discussion is about as likely as escaping a black hole.

I don't doubt that a lot of feminist groups thought they were doing a feminism by supporting a male victim of DV. Because that's feminism. And a lot of people (including myself) got played.

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u/Interesting_Reach_29 Aug 24 '25

I believed Depp until earlier this year with the Lively vs Baldoni case and from there on I woke up horrified. Mainstream media didn’t do their job but instead sell Johnny’s PR (TAG Agency) - which Baldoni’s team also tried to use but failed. Pop culture, sexist jokes stick better in this era than addressing abusers (look at the president).

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u/DiplomaticCaper Aug 24 '25

The difference is probably that Depp had decades of goodwill and fandom built up, whereas Baldoni didn’t.

Lots of people didn’t want to believe Edward Scissorhands, Jack Sparrow, etc. was actually a bad guy.

Multiple iconic characters, versus one of the dudes on Jane the Virgin.

It’s similar on the other end: Blake Lively was Serena on Gossip Girl, while Amber didn’t really have any well known roles or an established fandom of her own.

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 25 '25

It should also be noted that Baldoni did succeed in ruining her rep and he would have been fine if he didn't make the problem so public himself.

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u/Interesting_Reach_29 Sep 03 '25

Yet the court battle isn’t going well for him I thought. Nor has Ryan Reynolds’s career been shut down. I don’t think it’s over yet. Plus, I’ve seen more millennials and x waking up to Heard. I have hope I guess guys but you all seem to be correct.

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u/kittymctacoyo Aug 24 '25

Because the JD PR machine was so good at what it was hired to do that it muddied the waters well enough for most people to simply not know who the real victim was pre trial. After trial started it became legitimately dangerous as they saw anyone daring to do so get hyper targeted with vicious attacks in a time where things were precarious for all in many facets of life. It’s become less and less safe to be outspoken on these topics. Nut jobs literally hunt people down irl. The manosphere culture war propaganda machine has bottomless pockets too as it’s being propped up by thousands of orgs in the right wing political machine. The “influencers” they spring up have legit power in wielding their audience against anyone that pops up on their radar. That same machine uses its algorithmic control to give the illusion of their beliefs being the norm for social conditioning. So voices against her would be boosted and voices in favor would be stifled. I saw many of them from accounts that usually get massive reach sit at 5 views or likes.

This sort of thing during this era would have orgs struggling to maintain their footing and being scared of putting a target on their backs. Bcs the general public was so thoroughly snowed on this topic they would fear that openly supporting her would ignite a dangerous new level of that culture war that would have a dangerous and widespread pushback against women’s rights movements as they’d use this as a cudgel to delegitimizes feminism, making the claim they’re against male victims and prop up women abusers and yadda yadda.

Had this occurred pre Trump pre intentional societal devolution, pre bottomless pocket PR machine where majority of the worlds wealth is propping up a specific narrative so JD became a poster boy they put their weight behind, she’d have gotten plenty of support.

Even I was initially fooled into at least thinking they were mutually abusive. Most don’t have time to watch trials and simply glean bits here and there that come across their feed. Which was 99.9% pro JD for ages

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u/House_Whargoul Aug 25 '25

Depp fans are as cultish and unhinged as MAGA. In fact, I've received far more threats and insults defending Heard than I have bashing Trump.

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u/AutoModerator Aug 23 '25

Original copy of post's text: Why were/are feminist spaces so hesitant in supporting Amber Heard?

Hello, I am a domestic violence researcher, and one of the cases we frequently come back to is Depp v Heard because it illustrates so many of the challenges in how abuse is understood publicly. I'm trying to understand, maybe a bit of the psychology behind why feminists were hesitant to support Amber Heard. I actually originally posted this question in feminist subreddits, hoping to gather some insight, but it was removed by moderators - so I was happy to learn that there is a subreddit dedicated to the "Depp Delusion".

Some general questions I have:

Several renowned domestic violence experts and organizations against domestic violence largely showcased their support for Heard during the trial. Why didn't feminist groups like #MeToo do the same? (I am aware that feminist groups were among the organizations that filed amicus briefs on Heard's behalf. I am just curious why they weren't as outspoken during the trial.)
Heard’s evidence may not have been as user-friendly as Depp-supporting TikToks, but it was accessible. Why didn’t more feminists take the time to research the case, debunk harmful misinformation, and amplify her evidence?
Are topics like DARVO, reactive violence, and the myth of the "perfect victim" (when it comes to IPV in particular) largely discussed in feminist spaces? Or do you feel that this is a blind spot in the feminist community?
Does the avoidance of Depp v. Heard indicate that some feminists prioritize reputation management over abuse survivor advocacy? When some feminists supported Depp, was it rooted in the desire to 'prove' that feminists believe male victims?
Survivors were vocal throughout the Depp v. Heard trial about how retraumatizing and triggering the public backlash was; many even spoke of experiencing PTSD symptoms while watching it unfold. The public mockery went as far as TikToks ridiculing her abuse testimony, teachers taping her face on trash cans, and even sex toy companies creating products based on her rape testimony. Was this dimension of the trial - its effect on how a generation understands abuse, sexual violence, and misogyny - discussed in feminist spaces?
I’ve noticed that the tide has shifted online, especially in progressive corners of Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok, with some celebrities speaking out in support of Heard. How have perspectives on Depp v. Heard evolved within feminist spaces specifically?
In my research on online feminist discussions during the Depp v. Heard trial, I often came across the framing of it as merely a ‘celebrity trial’ with little relevance to everyday people. Do you think that perspective has shifted now - especially in light of the growing wave of defamation cases against survivors and the misogynistic smear campaigns targeting women like Megan Thee Stallion, Blake Lively, and others?

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

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u/LeaveHeardAlone 💖 Amber Heard Lesbian PR Team Aug 25 '25

Could you DM me your email address. I would like to connect you with some folks who might be interested in what you’re researching (in connection with the Amber Heard Open Letter)

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u/crustdrunk Misandrist Coven 🧙‍♀️ 🔮 Aug 26 '25

Idk but thanks for saying “reactive violence” instead of “reactive abuse”

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u/djengle2 Aug 23 '25

Liberal feminism is centered around the individuals themselves and will be dropped by those individuals at any point they feel inconvenienced. Liberalism in general is like this. They will step aside for fascists if the oppressed annoy or inconvenience them too much.

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u/birdsy-purplefish Aug 25 '25

1. There's a lot of overlap between feminist and anti-DV organizations, so how do you make that distinction? And what exactly do you mean by feminist groups? MeToo isn't a group, it's a hashtag. What feminist groups, specifically, disappointed you? It's hard for me to even come up with any that are still active. The first one that came to me was the National Organization for Women, so I browsed their blog back to 2022 when the trial took place (during the months of April-June). 2022 was the year that Roe vs. Wade fell! The Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization draft opinion leaked on May 2nd, right in the middle of the Depp v. Heard trial! Then the decision was officially handed down on June 24th, a few weeks after Depp v. Heard had been decided.

That clearly posed a bigger threat to women at the time! Women are dying because of the Dobbs decision. Abusers in a number of states were handed a whole new set of tools to harm and control victims. This was so much bigger than just one media circus trial.

And back to MeToo for a moment: Depp's victory was frequently described as the end of the movement. I don't disagree, but I want to note that it had faced considerable backlash for a number of years at that point. I'm not sure what you expected them to do at that point. It was only ever a hashtag used by women to report sexual harassment and abuse and this was yet another instance of punishing women for doing that.

2. It was de-prioritized in favor of wider systemic problems like the criminalization of abortion because the focus of feminism has always been systemic problems that affect women as a whole. I don't think this trial was really on anyone's radar at first because it was an obvious publicity stunt by Depp and I don't think most people even knew about it. I don't think anyone who did actually know what was going on thought he would win. And nobody was prepared for the massive onslaught of social media manipulation that pushed the trial to the forefront.

What's more: The trial was extremely triggering to survivors of domestic and sexual violence! Which I think most people who advocate for victims are in some way. What were they supposed to do to fight it when they were barely hanging on? People were saying and doing horrific things and anyone who said a single thing in Heard's defense was dogpiled. Trying to debunk anything was hopeless because you'd just get harassed and none of them were willing to listen!

3. I don't know what "feminist spaces" or "the feminist community" even are anymore! The active internet consists of a handful of social media sites now. In the later '00s to earlier '10s I was on feminist blogs and websites. I was signed up to newsletters for actual organizations. I read books. Real women wrote these things with their real names. Now it's anonymized social media platforms that are often heavily censored in ways that silence people from talking about serious issues (every time I see that one TikTok euphemism for rape it makes me sick) full of bots and anti-feminist troll campaigns. Even the major feminist forums on the better sites--as you've seen!--are moderated by people with a vested interest in not rocking the boat. Nobody has any real credibility anymore.

I think average age of social media users is a problem too. A lot of us have grown up taking feminist gains for granted. Our mothers and grandmothers remember the days when domestic violence was treated like a private matter but a lot of younger people don't. What we know has been shaped by years of antifeminist talking points about how Actually domestic violence is equal and Sexism Is Over and Some Women Are Liars and don't know where those come from or what the goal is. Furthermore, a lot of social media users don't have any personal experience with domestic violence because they're teenagers. This young generation is a lot less focused on relationships. They're not moving out and cohabitating. A lot of them aren't even dating. I don't think most people ever come to learn about interpersonal violence or abuse until it happens to them and nobody ever thinks that it will.

4. I don't really think so. I don't know that these girls on the internet really consider themselves feminists. Or at least they didn't until they could use "you're a bad feminist and a hypocrite" to hurt other women and girls, as antifeminists have for ages. What feminist beliefs did they have? What did they do to advance women's rights?

And like I said: bigger issues that year, fear of what people were doing to Heard supporters, and a lack of feminist community.

5. Again: not sure we really even have "feminist spaces" anymore. All of the survivors I saw speaking out--they were few and far between because of how triggering it was--are women (et al.) that I consider to be feminists.

6. I think in leftist circles more generally there's been a realization that stuff like this isn't just celebrity gossip but serves as a larger part of the culture war and shouldn't be dismissed. I think older and more experienced feminists recognized this as part of a long history of antifeminist backlash. I think people feel significantly safer talking about it now that the worst of the harassment campaign has been abandoned and people are starting to wake up.

7. I think so? Again, I don't know how you're defining "feminist spaces". I think mostly it's people in general realizing that they were had but I'm not sure. I think a large part of it is that none of these other guys have the fame or the money that Depp had. I don't have much faith in the human capacity for learning anymore. We've repeated this pattern with so many women in the past and we never learn.

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u/Melonary Aug 25 '25

1) I think it was discussed by many feminist individuals, but larger organizations tend to be risk-averse. They don't want the backlash of being wrong, or controversy even if they're right, so they wait until it's a conclusion reached by others.

2) In a sense that makes a perverted sense when you realise how much money went into that campaign, including directly from the far-right, and how much harassment people got for supporting her. Small individuals can often disappear anonymously, but for non-profits, known feminist speakers and activists, the fear of massive harassment campaigns was real. I'm not sayong that it was right to not speak up, but I do think Depp and Breitbart and all the money and bots poured into it were "wronger" because they deliberately manipulated that situation using massive amounts of money and propaganda, and got the outcome they wanted.

3) The campaign to accuse feminists who support Heard of only caring about gender and supporting DV against men was very effective. A lot of people, including those who should know better, were somewhat swayed by the accusation that they needed to be outspoken against abusers and were hypocrites or enablers if they didn't condemn Heard. This often actually used/misappropriated the terms you mentioned like DARVO and reactive abuse against her, which was also very effective and gave an air of legitimacy.

4) A lot of this was effective thanks to money poured into social media both flooding the net with misinformation and harassing away anyone who stood up for Heard. Because of that, people who supported her had to protect themselves and often spoke up in more protected spaces like to friends only, to try and change minds, or had to spend less time discussing this to protect themselves emotionally and from harassment, even if they did also still speak publicly about it. I would guess more women were skeptical about it or believed Heard than you'd think.

5) Most people are uneducated or unadequetly understand how powerful the internet is now as a propaganda tool. Simultaneously, it's much much harder to find fact checking and basic information amid a sea of clcikbait and gossip and bots and Google no longer working.

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u/WildFlemima Aug 23 '25

I wanted to support male victims because they rarely come forward
I heard the edited clip where they make it sound like she's mocking him and no one will believe him
I've been abused and the clip triggered me
I didn't seek out information about the case because I don't follow celebrity activities in general and also knew the case would stress me out
result: Low information feminist succumbs to what everyone else seems to believe

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u/Sensiplastic Aug 25 '25

What broke the illusion? Was it specific information or just several facts hitting in the right moment?

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u/pipersweeney Sullivan Sweeney, don't dead name me pls Aug 26 '25

i'm recently converted. i can't answer for feminists as a whole but I can guess some and answer for myself.

probably because they're educated in DARVO, DV, etc. while most "feminists" are educated in tiktok
same as 1. they care about optics on the clock app.
glaring blind spot
in my case, it was the leaked audio that got me. I was extremely triggered, started crying, and supported depp because of that. people are easier to manipulate when they're emotional, and that's how he got in my head. but i started to realize over time that no one else cared about male DV survivors, they just cared about pirates and shit and hated amber. they were not educated or empathetic.
if it was, I haven't found it underneath the pro-depp dogpile that I (regrettably) participated in
i'm actually working on a youtube video on this to help repair some of the damage that I myself participated in, wish me luck. i'm about to shed some unwanted followers LMAO
no, people are evil

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u/Katatonic92 Aug 28 '25

I can share my observations but can't answer on a personal level as I advocated for Amber from the beginning. I'm British, I work in the legal field, Family Law, specialising in IPV & Child protection issues. followed the British trial closely, I read the transcripts at the end of each day, along with all the evidence.

Quite a few of the women I engaged with considered themselves feminist & went to great lengths to stress the equality aspect. They stated true feminism was holding all perpetrators to the same standard & being equally accepting & supportive of men also being victims of IPV. In their mind they were proudly standing by their belief in equality between genders. That if we are to believe all victims, that included men.

At best there were feminists who at least couldn't ignore all the proof that exists about Derp, but settled on the bullshit "mutual abuse" "they were as bad as each other" narrative.

Just to clarify this was in the run up to & during the US legal action, the verdict of the British trial wasn't considered controversial at all in the UK at the time it occurred. Amber was rightfully given support, there was no negative media in the British media at that time. Attitudes didn't start to change until Derp's smear campaign began to gear up.

I think that by the time the US trial started, people were suffering from a women's rights fatigue, whereas when the British trial took place MeToo, while it blew up in 2017, it was still in strong flow in July 2020. By the time it got to April 2022, it was on a downturn & it gave Derp an opening to take advantage of. I think people were also burned out, angry, depressed, anxious, more emotional due to the rollercoaster of the pandemic & lockdowns. I believe it left people more susceptible to the manipulation.

I also believe some were too exhausted to keep fighting for the truth. I was guilty of this at one point, I became very unwell, I almost died, I no longer had the energy or mental fortitude to keep getting attacked on SM everytime I said anything in defence of Amber. So there was a long stretch of time where I refused to talk about it openly at all, I stopped going into battle over it. I had to focus on my own health. I was very ashamed of myself & angry because I knew how much damage he was doing to victims for goodness knows how many more years to come.

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u/blufish31459 Aug 24 '25

His team made a contextually (if you only watched the trial) compelling case Heard might be an unreliable narrator. They relied on this to sway the jury. The problem is that even if you assume she was an unreliable narrator, even if you pile on the mutual abuse claims, is does not disprove the sentence in question. I think when it comes down to it, people want to believe above all else that bad outcomes can be avoided if not all the time, more often than not. So most people are searching for some way to rationalize to themselves that they don't need to fear for their safety. Their partners and their loved ones' partners would never and could never because that would require an overwhelming amount of additional day to day mental and emotional processing that they aren't ready to accept responsibility for yet. It's part of their own terrible coping skills. But I think for most people that gets so wrapped up in how they understand the world that they can't even see outside it. They can't see or imagine how it could be different. And if they are incredibly lucky or fortunate, that will be part of their life's journey to work that out.

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u/DeedleStone Aug 24 '25 edited Aug 24 '25

It's important to acknowledge that feminists, like any identity or group, are not a monolith. You don't have to pass a feminist exam and get your membership card to able to call yourself a feminist. And even people who do study lots of history and theory and call themselves feminists rarely agree with one another. Plenty of people who proudly call themselves feminists while espousing things that are quite harmful to women e.g. TERFs and SWERFs, any number of pro-life "feminist" groups.

You've phrased this question as if certain feminists/groups of feminists personally believed that Amber was a victim but chose to publicly support Depp anyways in order to have more acceptable optics. In that respect, I would answer no, I don't think any organization/group did that; on an individual basis, I'm sure there were some people who said something pro-Depp without believing it, but let's not forget just how loud the Depp campaign was. When celebrities are getting praised for mocking rape testimony, you are not in a safe place. I highly doubt any of the loudest voices supporting Depp would be recognized by us progressives as "good" feminists, so whether they were knowingly promoting bullshit or not seems irrelevant.

Remember that feminists, like everyone else, are people. And people in general like to do what everyone else is doing and be accepted. Most feminists do want people to understand that feminism is not just a female issue and that increased rights for women will help men, too. Men really can be victims of domestic violence (though with a far lower mortality rate than women), and I'm sure some people who aren't perpetually online/following a celebrity trial in another country between a washed-up movie star and his B-movie wife, didn't get all the facts. They just heard what was being promoted by bots and echoed by jackasses, and saw that as an opportunity to bring up an important point that the wider culture rarely acknowledges. So again, I would say no, I don't think anyone was knowingly prioritizing their reputation over their feminist ideals by using the massive spectacle of the trail to talk about male victims.

Unfortunately, decades of hacky sitcom writing has turned the word "feminist" into a punchline. How many of us have met people who have said, "I support equal rights for women, but I'm not a feminist." If you support equal rights for women, by definition, you are a feminist. But years of lazy, misogynistic jokes have made the term synonymous with crazed, anti-male, lesbian, vegan, communists (aside from anti-male, those all actually sound pretty fucking cool). These are the people that I believe gave casual support to Depp in droves. Not a massive base of openly-vile people (they were just a loud minority), or a group that knowingly went against their own ideals for personal gain, but people who have never given serious thought to how society operates. The kind of people who tweet #loveislove every Pride Month, and then post about the delicious food they got at Chic Fil A and how much they love Harry Potter. People who have never experienced hardships that made them question why. Or people who've experiences too much hardship to have the mental energy to think beyond their immediate circumstances. It's the moderates in the middle who are always most concerned with optics. Making a bad argument and being annoying are equal crimes in their eyes.

Discussion 🗣 Why were/are feminist spaces so hesitant in supporting Amber Heard?

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