The verdict ruling in favour of the global film celebrity Jonny Depp lay raw the toxic violent nature of his relationship with ex-wife Amber Heard. Many also claim it is the death knell for the global #MeToo movement.
The #MeToo movement was launched to raise the visibility of the multiple forms of discrimination and violence that women and girls face globally on a daily basis.
This recent verdict was a clear attempt by Depp and his team to overshadow the UK high court verdict, delivered by Mr Justice Nicol, in which 12 out of 14 alleged incidents of domestic violence, against Heard in the hands of Depp, were considered substantially true.
The sheer volume of support Depp has received and the demonization of Heard, once again, repeats the historic misogynistic narrative that women are objects of male control who should remain silent. Male power sanctions the use of violence to remove female agency and remind women of their inferiority.
This case has arguably taken this narrative in a new direction in which even the most horrific images of male aggression have been normalised under the glamour of celebrity.
Misogyny across the globe seems to always find a way to lash back against feminist activist forces who want to transform society and establish human rights and social, gendered and intersectional equality.
Already domestic abuse organisations report a decrease in the number of women coming forward to report cases. No doubt women fear that their claims will be dismissed in the same way as Heard’s.
After all, if a global celerity such as Heard cannot get a jury to hear her, then what chance does a low-income mother have?
A mother who is struggling to live a life free from a cycle of abusive relationships that started in her childhood.
In this instance, the status of male celebrity, still more powerful than female celebrity, has been used by so much of the media as the platform on which to project misogyny as the supreme norm.
This troubling story has unfolded at just a moment when we have seen a massive rollback on the global successes of grassroots action focused on combating a range of abusive practices and behaviour directed at women and girls.
We know that Covid and the impact of lockdowns and reductions in aid spending have triggered increases in levels of intimate partner violence, and harmful practices such as FGM and child marriage.
We also know that any shock or trauma from conflict to climate change also acts to increase the vulnerabilities of women and girls in two main (not exclusive) ways. Firstly, as communities sink into even deeper poverty and food insecurity, families must sell and release all resources available to them.
Girls are, at times of insecurity, considered a resource that can be exchanged in marriage for cattle, cash, and other material goods. Bride-price is common in many contexts and is regarded as an economic necessity in communities whose livelihoods are precarious.
Covid has triggered surges in child marriage as families must quickly reduce the number of members that need feeding. Many young women are sold to men who then sell them to trafficking rings condemning them to a life of violent trauma and hopelessness.
In other contexts, girls whose agency and knowledge of their bodily autonomy has increased through education, now struggle to express it. Many families are going back on the promises made to girls to not cut them and see them through school.
The second disturbing increase in gendered vulnerability can be seen in the globally rising levels of intimate partner violence. Male aggression increases during times of stress and tension because it is a characteristic of the heterosexual norm of patriarchy.
Men as patriarchs still dominate the gendered structure of societies everywhere. This construct remains pervasive despite the acknowledgement that very few men can and want to emulate it.
When shocks happen such as a sudden loss of income or a deepening of poverty due to long periods of environmental damage, a loss of a football game coupled with excessive alcohol consumption, violence against women and girls spikes.
Women and girls are vulnerable during these moments because of the way misogyny has reduced them to objects of patriarchal male control regardless of their individual success, level of education or indeed celebrity status.
When male aggression is captured, recorded, and reshown in all its brutality it seems that only those who view the world through a particular gendered and feminist lens are able to call it out for the cruel crime it is.
The links I have made here between the case of Depp and Heard and global rises in multiple forms of violence may seem an extreme stretch.
However, those of us who see and experience the ways in which male power is exercised every day, and through many covert and overtly abusive acts, understand the importance of quickly halting the spread of a destructive movement that seeks to further male power through the celebritisation of misogyny.
This movement, if not stopped, will further legitimise the actions of perpetrators around the globe who will feel even more empowered to adopt aggressive behaviour against the women and girls around them.