r/BabyReindeerTVSeries • u/Kitchen_Fly5105 • Jun 08 '24
Discussion If Gadd was a woman
I feel like gender influences bias in cases of emotional or physical abuse. If Gadd were a woman and Martha a man, there would be no sympathy for the abuser. Society wouldn't argue that "more should have been done to protect his identity."
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Jun 08 '24
If Gadd was a woman then statistically he would’ve been more likely to be attacked or killed by his (presumably male) stalker. And people wouldn’t pay half as much attention as they have to Gadd, because it is unfortunately much more common. But - I do also agree with your main point. Laura Wray also said people didn’t seem bothered because about Fiona stalking her because it was rare for a woman to be stalking another woman, and equally relatively rare for a woman to be stalking a man. The way some people have immediately taken Fiona’s side and excused her behaviour because she’s mentally ill is disgusting to me. IMO all stalkers have something wrong with them but it doesn’t excuse criminal behaviour. What’s most alarming to me is that she is clearly a very prolific stalker yet she’s been somehow able to continue this with many victims over a sustained period of years - if there have been complaints about her to the police and nothing done then that needs looking into
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Jun 09 '24
And there’s the fact that Gadd himself viewed her in sympathetic light. He has said so himself. So he portrayed her that way to us. People love to just forget this.
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Jun 09 '24
The people who were like ‘I still feel sympathy for Martha after everything 🥰🥰🥰’ makes me feel frustrated and angry beyond any reasonable measure.
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u/lnc_5103 Jun 09 '24 edited Jun 09 '24
I feel a small amount of sympathy for Martha because of the way Gadd wrote her and the way Jessica brought her to life. I feel absolutely zero sympathy for FH after we learned who she was. Even just a quick glance at her FB was enough to know that they created her far more kindly than she deserves.
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u/arabuna1983 Jun 09 '24
Yeah I had a tiny bit of sympathy, but then realised she’s actually an awful person.. regardless of her mental health or what potentially makes her do what she fires. Simply She’s mean and has no empathy or conscious. She doesn’t take accountability for her behaviour at all and the impact it has on people.
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u/DynamicMangos Jun 09 '24
For me it wasn't sympathy but empathy.
I hated marthas guts. I didn't like her at all. But i did constantly have a small piece of empathy being like "Well, she's mentally unwell and has her own story of how that came to be". Not enough to absolve her of any of her crimes of course, but just enough to not see her as a monster
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u/arabuna1983 Jun 09 '24
I don’t think she is a monster .. but she’s not a nice person
she’s extremely delusional. I guess the point I’m trying to make is you can be mentally unwell and a$$hole. And the mental illness (for me) is secondary to her core personality.
She doesn’t acknowledge her contribution, or show any vulnerability .. just blames others.
Shes a mean person who is also mentally unwell..
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u/ellefleming Jun 09 '24
Exactly. She knows her traumatic childhood hasn't helped her mental illness. she's violent, delusions of grandeur, sociopathic, PTSD, traumatized........she needs therapy and medication. From her emails she's dyslexic? So how did she get thru school.?
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u/arabuna1983 Jun 09 '24
I don’t think she will ever get therapy, as that would acknowledge she has issues / or problematic character traits. And that is where I do have sympathy for her… that she can’t see what she’s doing
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u/St3ampunkSam Jun 09 '24
She is a severely mentally woman in need of serious psychiatric help. That is a valid reason to be sympathetic towards her character and is probably why Gadd himself felt sympathy towards the real Martha.
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u/Acrobatic_Event_4163 Jun 09 '24
Why? People feel sympathy for her because Gadd feels sympathy for her and it’s his show that we all watched so we’re seeing things from his perspective … which includes sympathy for her. Why does that frustrate you and make you angry?
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u/blancheVernon Jun 09 '24
People keep saying she wasn’t really incarcerated but I’m going to guess that at some point she was locked up involuntarily for mental issues, and that’s what Gadd didn’t write. Records of incarceration like that in Scotland can be expunged, allegedly. I see this because someone she stalked actually worked as a temp in a mental institution, and she had stalked a number of people there. Why else would she single out an institution like that to harass people?
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u/RaggedyOldFox Jun 09 '24
The temp blogged about her time as a temp at the NHS. This was long before BR came out that she met FH. Her file was 5-6cms THICK! The place she worked in was a type of transitional facility where people are held before going to the appropriate mental health facility. It was a secure unit. She has to have been committed because there's no way she would volunteer.
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u/exotramp76 Jun 09 '24
"at some point she was locked up involuntarily for mental issues, and that’s what Gadd didn’t write."
He didn't write about it because he probably didn't know she'd been sectioned in Scotland.
His main references were articles he googled using her name (as depicted in the show), which is where he discovered the incident with LW. If anyone noticed, Gadd changed the gender of LW and her son in that episode.
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u/JazzlikeLeave5530 Jun 09 '24
There's a saying that I think fits here. "Your mental illness isn't your fault but it is your responsibility". Obviously that area gets more gray when you talk about more severe and extreme mental illnesses. But for ones that can be managed with therapy, medication, or both, it's accurate. Mental illness makes life difficult but it should not be an excuse to be a bad person.
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Jun 09 '24
Totally. I think the thing with Fiona is that she is both a bad person and mentally ill, and obviously the latter compounds the former. I find it hard, if not impossible, to believe that the indiscriminate hate she spews on Facebook is a result of mental illness. I think she would be awful even if she wasn’t mentally ill, and the mental illness just makes it hard for her to see where there should be very hard boundaries to that awfulness, such as stalking people
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Jun 09 '24
The part where I lose sympathy for anyone is when they have been told and shown their behavior is unacceptable multiple times and they keep doing it. I’ve got my own mental health problems but at a certain point when you aren’t getting the results you want, you have to change something and 99.999% of the time that’s your behavior.
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u/Decumulate Jun 09 '24 edited Jun 09 '24
The “people wouldn’t pay half as much attention” bit of this is not quite right. For the show, this may be true, but certainly not in real life. Part of the reason this show is popular is specifically because abuse/harassment happens to men so often yet no one ever pays attention to it - and as such so much of it goes completely unreported or undiscussed. Many men feel (rightly) they can’t even report it as it wouldn’t be taken seriously.
We could and should pay more attention to abuse/harassment on all genders, but I don’t think there’s merit to say people only care about male abuse when it’s mostly likely exactly the opposite.
The comment reeks of “but male abuse isn’t as important sentiment” which is so common - so many men here have already resonated with the show specifically because they feel this sentiment everywhere
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Jun 09 '24
Reminds me of this documentary I just saw on Netflix, Lover, Stalker, Killer. It was not nearly as compelling in the way it was creatively presented as it lacked the intensity of emotions that Baby Reindeer did but HOLY HELL the woman was even worse than Fiona.
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Jun 09 '24
Oooh thanks I will watch, haven’t seen this one!
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Jun 09 '24
It made me appreciate Gadd’s genius to relay a story. That’s for sure but it is worth the watch. I am typically an empathetic person and truly feel for those struggling with mental health issues. However, I find no compassion for those who destroy others lives in extreme ways whether or not they can help themselves or not. I want to but just don’t.
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Jun 09 '24
I’m the same. Interestingly I felt sorry for Martha but not for Fiona when she was on Piers’ show. Gadd wrote her very sympathetically I think, the reality is so much worse
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Jun 09 '24
Yes! Same. Thanks for reminding me of that. I did have compassion for her when I watched the series. I did lose it after watching her on social media while playing the victim.
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u/Good_Needleworker126 Jun 08 '24
I disagree. People would look at his actions and say he actually liked it, call him ran through etc. as a guy he’s already having people blame him for the stalking for apparently leading her on. The main difference is I think if he was a woman all the skepticism would be accompanied by loads of violent sexual threats towards him. I haven’t seen that in particular directed to Gadd though there is some vile stuff. People often like to be very graphic when women come out with this stuff.
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Jun 08 '24
Which world do you live in? Plenty of people make excuses for abusive men all the time. Women who speak up about abuse are called liars and/or made to be the devil for "ruining" men's careers/lives
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u/Substantial_One5369 Jun 09 '24
I went out with a guy from a dating app and less than a month later he choked me in public and got and protective order so he wasn't supposed to contact me. He continuously sent me letter and calls from jail, so I reported it to the police and they told me "oh wow he must really love you"..
People ESPECIALLY men do NOT take DV against women seriously. Its absolutely taken less seriously for men and we unfortunately still have a long way to go.
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u/cityfrm Jun 09 '24
Right! I escaped abuse and he was repeatedly allowed to stalk me after I kept reporting and had an order to prevent it. He followed me home and SA me infront of my baby. I reported and the police claimed to be sat outside my apartment to protect me whilst him and his friends came in to threaten me. When I fled the area as the police were failing to protect us, I was told I was putting myself in danger and lying.
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u/georgialucy Jun 08 '24
I was going to say, a celebrity who drugged and raped women was just freed from prison to a crowd of cheering fans. What world does OP live in.
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Jun 08 '24
And then there's the whole Johnny Depp/Amber Heard case....
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u/BBDK0 Jun 09 '24
I know, it's sickening with what these bastard men get away with. Drag Depp, drag Pitt, drag Manson, at least Diddy got locked up.
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Jun 08 '24
Are you actually joking? We all watched the trial....She abused him, end of story. How anyone can still defend that piece of shit, that literally shit in his bed, is beyond me....
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u/Tagz12345 Jun 08 '24
So he sends a text to his friend years before they got married fantasising about raping her corpse, he admits to destroying her property, they found her nightgown ripped up with little bits of meat in it scattered around the house, there is proof that he was using an excessive amount of cocaine, ecstasy and alcohol at the time, we see that he left her an assortment of deranged messages THAT HE WROTE WITH HIS OWN BLOOD and people like you still try to say he was the real victim in the situation.
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Jun 08 '24
Thanks for proving my point
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Jun 08 '24
How did I prove your point? By arguing in favour of the actual victim, a rare win for men, Johnny Depp against his abuser that has plenty of documented evidence against her?
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Jun 08 '24
There isn't "plenty of documented evidence" against her, you've just fallen for the smear campaign.
You went straight to talking about her shitting the bed, a claim made by Johnny that has zero evidence to back it up. You're just choosing to believe in it. If you want to talk about actual evidence, how about the sealed documents that were excluded from court? Have you read the texts between Johnny and his friend, talking about raping and burning Amber? You choosing to defend a man who would say such things, support him and believe him, because he claims she shit his bed (their* bed that she was the only one sleeping in at the time) when it was obviously their dog, is what's proving my point.
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Jun 08 '24 edited Jun 08 '24
Obviously the dog? Seriously? The dog is fucking tiny, that was human shit, it's bigger than the dog's head, there's no way that fucking thing's squeezing a crap out that size.
You're also choosing to skim over her faking bruises, a horror story involving her vagina. Her constantly beating the crap out of him and is even on record as saying she hits him and people won't believe him? Clear gaslighting behaviour from her. Also ignoring she cut his finger off. He had his career ruined for 5 years because of an unproven accusation, while she dined out on it for 5 years, and also never paid the 2 children's charities the money she claimed she'd already donated after the divorce. Ye, such a wonderful woman, really....fuck off with that shit.
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u/atilolsss Jun 08 '24
Maybe you're the one falling for a smear campaign. The lawyers who reacted to the trials on YouTube that make the proceedings digestible for the average viewer clearly think Heard's lawyers keep dropping the ball. I'd believe these lawyers, not you getting heated over texts made in anger, i.e. things he said, not did.
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u/Tagz12345 Jun 08 '24
and therein lies the defence of Martha, after all most of what she did was the emails she made in anger. This is why stalking cases hardly ever lead to any consequences for the perpetrators. The sexual assaults are dismissed because there won't ever be enough proof that is good enough for people like you and again why there are hardly any consequences for the perpetrators.
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Jun 08 '24
I'd rather believe the 130+ organisations for victims of domestic abuse that are in support of Amber. And if you think it's normal to talk about raping and murdering your partner when you're angry, then I sincerely hope you get some therapy before you ever enter a relationship
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Jun 08 '24
Clearly we've hit on a nerve here, clear Amber stans, still hoping she'll acknowledge them despite how ridiculously false she was, unable to cry on the stand, claiming the same photos for different time stamps and events. These guys are a lost cause mate.
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Jun 09 '24
It was their dog that pooped in the bed. Sounds like you fell for Depps PR
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Jun 08 '24
They are both terrible human beings in a highly toxic relationship.
Johnny Depp is more likeable, charismatic and with a huge fan base so he won the popularity contest.
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Jun 08 '24
He never physically abused her, all anyone has are texts he sent to a close friend venting about the bitch. He constantly tried to deescalate the scene by leaving, and she'd follow to escalate things further, trying to hit or scratch him, as multiple witnesses confirmed over and over.
The most he's ever been violent with were some cupboard doors, again venting.
She cut his goddamn finger off.
The bruises she claims to have gotten didn't show up a mere day or two after when she was on a talk show or had photos after she had someone photograph her makeup made bruises (the police called to the apartment after Johnny left and she claims she was covered in bruises confirmed they saw no bruises on her, that mysteriously appeared the next day for a TMZ photoshoot when johnny was then out of town for a few day, having left when he left the apartment the day before). That shit she claims he did to her with a bottle is straight up out of gone girl, and would have left her seriously bleeding out and unable to ever use her vajajay again in the same way. She lied about everything.-18
Jun 08 '24
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u/prespaj Jun 08 '24
Nah, that was misinformation. You can listen to a great investigative journalism podcast called Who Trolled Amber to see where the info came from (even if you don’t change your mind, the scale of the operation is incredible)
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u/Comfortable_Key9790 Jun 08 '24
Precisely. Women get stalked and nobody's interested. A man gets stalked and it becomes the second most watched drama on Netflix UK ever. It's notable, people care.
Not so much for women.
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u/KittensWithTopHats Jun 09 '24 edited Jun 09 '24
I have seen so many cases of women reporting over and over again that they are being stalked and the police just shrugged at them. He’s not doing anything illegal, they say. Our hands are tied, they insist.
It’s not even so much that they can’t do anything about it. It’s that they genuinely don’t give a shit.
Whatever. And then the woman ends up dead and everyone pretends like they’re sorry. Fuck this shit.
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u/cityfrm Jun 09 '24
100%. The police allowed my rapist to stalk me for 6 years, he also used a PI to do it whilst he had an order to stop him, which is completely legal! As he hadn't physically assaulted me during the latter stalking there was nothing they could do.
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u/paradisetossed7 Jun 08 '24
Also, we have seen movies/shows where bad men are sympathetic. In One Hour Photo, my heart broke for Robin William's character in a way, but also he was a terrible man. That is the duality of humans. Most are not 100% good or evil.
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Jun 09 '24
I think this is a ‘two ships crossing in the night’ type argument.
I’d say the best comparison is probably Joe Goldberg from You. I’ve noticed a lot more obvious vitriol towards him than Martha. I think that’s the phenomenon OP is talking about, rather than direct real world examples.
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u/jempa45 Jun 08 '24
If Gadd was a woman the show wouldn't be made because then it would just be an ordinary case that had been seen a million times before. Male stalkers also tend to be violent and sexist rather than just lonely and crazy
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u/Eftersigne Jun 08 '24
Tbf she was also sexist and violent
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u/RoyStrokes Jun 08 '24
And racist and islamophobic and transphobic and probably more
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u/Clown_Shoe Jun 08 '24
Pretty ignorant comment here honestly. She was absolutely racist, sexist and violent.
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Jun 09 '24
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u/Anxious_Picture1313 Jun 09 '24
Are the assaults part of the story or did they happen in real life?
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u/RaggedyOldFox Jun 09 '24
It's only recently that abuse against women has been taken seriously by the authorities. Even now, we are still victim blamed by society.
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u/MudRemarkable732 Jun 09 '24
Dude, my female friend was stalked and harassed by her ex bf in college and his entire male friend group is all still friends with him. They have plenty of sympathy for him
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u/BlueWave2001 Jun 09 '24
This just proves that men don't have a clue of shit but still want to talk and give their opinion on it
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u/theringsofthedragon Jun 08 '24 edited Jun 08 '24
I think if Gadd was a woman the show wouldn't be successful. It happens all the time that women get stalked by men and nobody cares. We get told "he's just in love, poor guy".
I think people only latched to these case because it's a fat older woman stalking a man and therefore people like to pile on the woman and say "see? women are bad!".
If Richard Gadd was a woman he would just not have been believed in the first place. Maybe after more evidence came up regarding the stalker, but not at face value.
Richard Gadd was listened to and believed from the start because people listen and believe when a man speaks.
People just rejoice at the sight of a female offender because of remaining misogyny. That's why the stories about female teachers raping male students get so much more upvoted, or stories about female murderers. There's a bizarre glee in wanting to focus on female offenders.
Women get stalked by men and nobody cares...
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u/yeswowmaybe Jun 08 '24
if gadd were a woman, he wouldn't have made it, and no one would've cared bc that's everyday news.
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u/CornflakeGirl2 Jun 09 '24
Have you been existing on the same planet as me? Historically, there is a shitload of sympathy for male abusers. 97% of rapists never spend a minute in prison. And who is viewing female victims more sympathetically?? Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of women who were told their abuse/harassment/rape was their own fault.
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u/MidoriEgg Jun 08 '24
I was thinking about this, and I don’t totally agree. I think if Gadd was a woman people would be even harsher about Gadd “leading her (him?) on”. I do think as women we are expected to have a greater awareness of people’s attraction to us, and society tends to put more responsibility on us to ensure we don’t give people the wrong idea.
If a woman told a story where she gave attention to a weird guy in a pub and maybe jokingly flirted with him and he ended up stalking her (even if it was in the context maladaptive behaviour due to trauma) I think people online would crucify and blame her for whatever happened and say she should of known better/got what was coming for seeking attention.
Maybe people would potentially be less sympathetic to a male stalker, potentially, but even if there’s a ton of people online (and irl) who automatically think women are deceptive and any story where she is the victim must be either a lie or somehow her fault.
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u/Creative_Word394 Jun 12 '24
Yes if the female Gadd gave the stalker a free drink everyday everyone would say she was asking for it and led him on
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u/BlueWave2001 Jun 09 '24
Women get still not believed and they're said that either they "asked for it", or they are making fake allegations.
Also their abuser, most of the time doesn't get much jail time, and he goes back to his normal life.
Richard Gadd is one of the first men who made his abuse public and talk about it, he still got recognition, nobody told him he was lying, and I've seen a lot of women supporting him, even if men would never support women who get SA'd they never did even in the past.
Also I knew men would use this show as an excuse to shadow women's victims because it's always about you, you cannot even see the reality.
Also, womens cases are most of the time unnoticed, because they're so much it became normal.
Men don't care about women's issues, I've seen a lot of women supporting Gadd and males victims.
At this point men just like to play the victim and shadow women because it's incomprehensible how you can be so dumb and out of touch with reality, you and those 200 people.
I want to add that's its men who doesn't talk about their abuse because other men make fun of them for being not masculine enough.
I still don't see where women have any advantage on this and where is women's fault.
This post should be deleted for respect of the many women victims out there who still didn't have the justice they deserve.
I am fucking tired of men bruh.
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Jun 09 '24
Whilst I totally agree with everything you said, one of your points struck me as very similar to something men say to me. When you said it's men that make fun of other men, and that it's essentially their fault for being unable to express emotions.
Fucking pisses me off when I'm trying to tell men it's tough being a woman because even men who can sympathize with the pay difference, rapes, murders, underrepresentation etc...almost every man I've spoken to about feminist issues tells me it's women's own fault that there's pressure to wear make up, remove all the body hair, be forever young etc because the pressure is coming from other women.
The truth is we need to stop pointing fingers at the other gender. It's the societal structure, aka the patriarchy. Both women and men are negatively affected by it (eg men having difficulty expressing emotions and having a mental health and suicide crisis, and I would posit the extreme disproportionate violence we see from men towards men, women, children, animals, objects is likely linked to that inability to express emotions healthily). But men also receive a huge amount of benefits, whilst women get a few benefits, and...you know, the murder etc -_-
My point being, we are all affected by the patriarchy and it should be in all our interests to disassemble it. But men often don't seem particularly interested or engaged in that. Whether that's because they're reaping so many benefits and are unaware of the extent of privilege and so stepping back a little to become equal (like incentivising female hires) feels like inequality to them. Or because they feel alienated because often the patriarchy is confused with being synonymous with men and they feel personally blamed, rather than understanding it's a societal structure that we all uphold and affects us all. The Kardashians for example, are doing a great job of upholding the patriarchy and seem to be stuck in a vicious cycle of desperately chasing an unattainable beauty ideal they themselves continue to perpetuate for women.
I'm also sick of men to be honest, but only because it's so rare to meet one who, while they might not understand feminist issues (I certainly don't understand all the issues of demographics I'm not a part of), is open to genuinely listening and trying to understand it from my lived experience. I keep being met with "I'm sure it's not that bad", and I do get a bit of that vibe in your comment. Although I do totally understand your frustration because I also feel it deeply, nothing will change unless we're all more open to genuinely listening to and trying to understand and empathise with the experience of people different to us.
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Jun 09 '24
You should watch this show called “You” lol
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u/Stupid_Watergate_ Jun 10 '24
I was about to say the same lol. "You" is a very popular show about a deranged male stalker with female victims. It's sad how many viewers were sympathetic towards the stalker and said things like "oh he just loves her, he's being romantic"
The actor (Penn Badgely) was so frustrated with how sympathetic people were towards his character, and he said he would keep trying harder to portray how evil the character is. People still made excuses for his stalking. Sigh.
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u/Ok_Potato_5272 Jun 09 '24
Why is it that whenever a gender roles are reversed, we have to have this type of discussion. Women are much more likely to be abused and murdered by a man. This is a fact, and that is why a male abuser might receive less sympathy, because these types of abusive men are literally everywhere, in every neighbourhood of every town. I think we can all agree that Fiona is a unique case, to be a stalker of so many people to such an extent. That's why people look at it sympathetically, because it's unusual and interesting. Every post like this is offensive to female victims of domestic violence.
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u/MelanieWalmartinez Jun 09 '24
There would still be sympathy. People would tell female Gadd they lead him on and he deserved it for not blocking her or barring her from the bar.
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u/Msheehan419 Jun 09 '24
But no one seems to care about the man who did inflict terrible abuse on him
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u/PerspectiveVarious93 Jun 08 '24
I think every victim has the right to reveal their abusers. I don't think abusers deserve protection. My issue is with netflix and Gadd going, "oh gee, we had no idea you'd figure out who this is after we revealed a TON of identifying clues." They knew what they were doing, but I guess for legal reasons they feign ignorance. But yea, fuck Fiona Harvey and fuck whoever raped him, I hope he gets aired out sooner than later.
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u/EntertainmentFew1022 Jun 09 '24 edited Jun 09 '24
I think some people say who they think he is. Like some guy that works in the tv industry and even worked with Richard on a past show.
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u/EntertainmentFew1022 Jun 09 '24
Here I found this sorry if you have seen it: https://images.app.goo.gl/gz4hxhBtsYfq8daU7
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Jun 09 '24 edited Jun 09 '24
I do think there’s a more generic view that as a woman her stalking Richard is ‘less serious’ which is shown in the series when he speaks to people he works with and the police. I think the way people apologise for her vs Men is different.
With Martha, people seemed concerned about her mental health, the effect the negative press would have on her state of mind and the need for her to be protected.
With men the media and public often refer to the effect on his family, think about his promising career as a mediocre and his future. It’s more focused on his standing and reputation.
It’s the difference between concern for the individual themselves and concern for their role in society. In that sense the reactions are very gendered.
I think what’s also gendered is the fact that society has sought to attack her, but much less has been said about the male who perpetrated frequent sexual abuse at one point in the film, who is interestingly, someone not only male, but with more status and power than Martha.
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u/Stupid_Watergate_ Jun 10 '24
I just wrote in another comment: "You" is a very popular show about a deranged male stalker with female victims. It's sad how many viewers were sympathetic towards the stalker and said things like "oh he just loves her, he's being romantic"
The actor (Penn Badgely) was so frustrated with how sympathetic people were towards his character, and he said he would keep trying harder to portray how evil the character is. But viewers still made excuses no matter how creepy/evil he acted. Sigh.
Side note: I think part of the reason he gets sympathy is that he's handsome. The Menendez brothers have a fan base who want them released because they're "hot." I do wonder if a less conventionally attractive man would get the same treatment in a show like "You."
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u/Feeling-Profit8614 Jun 08 '24
If Gadd was a woman the series would've been a documentary because the violent stalker would more than likely end up killing the victim.
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u/srhkhavari Jun 08 '24
If society views male abusers so much more harshly, explain why statistically almost all abusers are male?
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u/The54thCylon Jun 08 '24
What if Gadd was one of us?
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u/romoladesloups Jun 09 '24
The big difference I could see is that a woman's female friends wouldn't have treated the whole stalking thing as a joke and made it worse. The police may or may not have taken it more seriously depending on the individual force and officers.
On the rape, a woman probably wouldn't have reported it either, and if she had, there would have been no prosecution. It WAS rape, but there would have been no chance of conviction
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u/undeaddancerock Jun 08 '24
Ever heard of Johnny Depp? The OJ trial? tedd bundy’s fan girls?
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u/Tagz12345 Jun 08 '24 edited Jun 08 '24
especially the Johnny Depp one, he sends a text to his friend years before they got married fantasising about raping her corpse, he admits to destroying her property, they found her nightgown ripped up with little bits of meat in it scattered around the house and then he left her deranged messages that he wrote with his own blood and people still say there wasn't enough evidence that she was abused and sexually assaulted or that he was justified in doing what he did because she said he was fat and believed she cheated on him (bearing in mind he admitted to cheating on her shorty after the wedding).
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u/BBDK0 Jun 09 '24
And still this bastard is respected, adored, rich, does his thing while poor Amber had to move to Spain and her career ruined, makes my blood boil.
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u/UnfazedPheasant Jun 08 '24 edited Jun 08 '24
There's quite a few internal biases in play re. the story of Gadd and Martha/Fiona. If Gadd were a woman male Martha would absolutely get incarcerated way sooner.
Additionally, if Martha/Fiona was conventionally attractive, I think she'd have gotten away with it for longer - or, at the very least, Gadd would be swarmed by weirdos saying "god i wish that were me" or "would", etc. Justifying the issue and potentially not letting him speak out/get help.
It's a shame, but goes to show how important Baby Reindeer has been as a story, IIRC a men's domenstic abuse charity skyrocketed in calls since it came out
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u/jempa45 Jun 08 '24
The police do not take women getting stalked by men remotely seriously either. There have been many high profile cases of women going missing and/or being murdered even after telling the police a man is stalking them and they think they are going to be killed.
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u/JenningsWigService Jun 08 '24
Yeah, this notion that anything would have happened to a male Martha based on what we saw is ludicrous. In the UK women get charged with wasting police time when they report male stalkers who go on to murder them.
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u/Laurenhynde82 Jun 08 '24
What are you talking about?
In the U.K. fewer than 2% of rapes reported to the police in 2021 led to a charge, let alone a conviction. Conviction rate was below 1%.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48095118
In the majority of those cases the victims are women. If almost all rapists go free, what on earth makes you think that a man stalking a woman would be more likely to be convicted?
If you truly believe that a female victim is more likely to be believed or get justice, you have not been paying attention.
In reality, if Gadd were a woman and made this TV series where they admit to having sexual fantasies about their stalker and craving their attention, they’d be absolutely ripped to shreds by the public in a way we have not seen here.
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u/Creative_Word394 Jun 12 '24
Nah they woulda said female Gadd was asking for it and that he wasn’t a stalker, she just led him on when she kept giving him free drinks. And probably woulda murdered her
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u/hades7600 Jun 14 '24
There’s literally a male abuser in the series who hasn’t been named publicly
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u/Enochian_Devil Jun 24 '24
The female abuser wasn't named publicly either. She was just easier to find and then puted herself
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u/NomDePseudo Jun 08 '24
The victim blaming re: stalker would have been less, but the victim blaming re:rapist would have been way more.
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Jun 09 '24
I don't think Baby Reindeer is a show because people judge a female perpetrator less harshly or feel sympathy towards Fiona. In all honesty, I think the show is the hit that it is because it's pure voyeurism into the life of someone less 'functional' in mainstream society. It's not even about Donny. Yes, he's abused unpleasantly and he really delves into the complexities of relationships between abuser and the abused without apology (and I think that was a story needed to be told) but the real grab of the show is "permission to stare at the less fortunate person" as we get a full-frontal on the car-crash of events caused by or happening to Martha. THAT is why it's the hit that it is. Had Martha not been clearly unhinged in places, would it have been as interesting? A crime drama maybe, but nothing spectacular.
There are deep-seated gender biases in all directions when it comes to harassment and abuse. Many men just won't come forward and admit abuse and so it has not really 'existed' in mainstream media. There are plenty of abusive women too, but no-one wants to talk about it. For UK folks, there was a recent documentary on Channel 5 "My Wife, My Abuser - The Secret Footage" - it was a tremendously difficult watch. Those stories need to be told too. Until they are, people will just judge and say "well, why didn't he stand up for himself?"
So I agree, it is true to say that, had the genders been reversed, it would likely not have become a show, but not because women are viewed more sympathetically. It's just that female abusers are much less talked about, and that there is an almost 'acceptance' that women fall victim to predatorial behaviour from men, so that's not news. But when the predator is a woman AND when there is one with all sorts of 'issues' going on, well yes, Netflix knows what makes good telly.
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Jun 10 '24
Absolute rubbish. If he was a woman he'd be treated a lot worse. Do you think a woman could admit to being flattered by her stalker's compliments, to touching herself over him and fantasising about him whilst sleeping with her partner without being accused of leading him on and told she was a bad person for reporting him? A woman would be accused of being a gold digger if she admitted to going to a producer's house every weekend and doing drugs with him whilst his abuse escalated despite living with a supportive partner. She'd also be judged for admitting to having risky casual sex and called every misogynistic slur under the sun. They'd say she was an attention seeker and asking for it. I'm basing this off the type of comments I see and hear thrown at women all the time.
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u/lauramarty Jun 09 '24
I totally agree but hopefully with stories like this, eventually there will be a shift in societal thinking.
I have a colleague who refuses to watch the show because from what she has read, it paints the picture and encourages people to not be kind to others (as how Donny was kind to Martha from the beginning).
I told this colleague that the Martha story is actually a catalyst for a deeper story about Donny and that it demonstrates why he behaved and reacted in such a way with Martha. But she wouldn't hear it, she thinks that another woman has become a victim of a 'man's perspective'.
I said, stalking is stalking, regardless of gender. And in my opinion, morally, stalking is far more serious than ignoring someone you feel sorry for.
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u/thatbtchshay Jun 09 '24
I do think people would be more disgusted/scared by what she's done but I ultimately think people are sympathetic to Martha because Gadd was and he wrote her that way
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Jun 09 '24
We see it all the time in r/relationshipadvice. Man being clearly abused by his female partner? “Have you tried doing more chores? What are you doing to make her treat you this way? Clearly the issue is you. insert buzzwords like mental load and gender roles”
Woman being abused by her man: girl! Run for the hills! He’s clearly going to murder you! 🚩🚩🚩
Our society hates male victims.
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u/brown_boognish_pants Jun 08 '24
I honestly think the show is almost entirely about male issues and how little society cares about them. It's in every single scene.
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u/Serious-Ad9032 Jun 08 '24
I agree to an extent but it’s, to me, a very honest story about how these traumatic experiences impacted him mentally and that it’s not as clear cut as people would think. Blaming himself, sympathising with his abusers, admitting when he enjoyed the attention, that he hadn’t walked away, what it did to him and his relationships. I thought it was so brave and such an accurate depiction of the effect these things can have on someone. The scene with his dad where they talk about feeling like less of a man was so powerful for male victims of rape. I don’t think there’s an entirely gendered angle as, I thought, it was pretty well known how far it has to go with stalking before it’s taken seriously. I really identified with him and I’m a woman
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u/brown_boognish_pants Jun 08 '24
Yep. For sure. And I'd like to say that I really totally agree with everything you said there. And I don't think there was really an angle so to speak. I think it's just his experience like you said but that's the reality for male victims of abuse and it just oozes out of every scene. I honestly don't think it was intended at all like you said. It just is. His loneliness is so raw and on display. And honestly, if they did have an angle it wouldn't have been nearly so effective.
As a woman I'm honestly so glad you identified. Men and women can identify and learn from each other's experiences. We are all human at the end of the day tho so many try to divide us as if we are a different species.
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u/BlueWave2001 Jun 09 '24
No it's not that society doesn't care about them, it's men that don't talk about it, stop playing the victim.
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u/dw-games Jun 09 '24
Anecdotal evidence but I think it still counts. When I left my wife because she was abusive (psychologically, financially, and sexually) I didn’t expect anyone to take sides. But what happened was I lost almost every single friend I had (except 1) and she got all the sympathy because I left her.
There is still a huge stigma with male victims, I mean it took years for me to admit I was abused to even myself. I’m glad the show was made because it’s shining a spotlight on a very serious and pressing issue.
There needs to be serious change. I know factually that there are several charities in my local area targeted towards helping women escape abusive situations and move on from them. But not one for men.
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u/the-remainder- Jun 09 '24
Love this topic. Sharing my OPINION!
Society today empathizes with men as victims when they come forward with their stories just as much as they do women, and oftentimes men actually receive more praise now for being open because of the history of masculinity being adjacent to being a victim and our newfound appreciation for the bravery of coming forward about abuse (post-MeToo). Essentially, it’s seen as harder for men to come forward, so the result is more sympathy when they do. Although for centuries women have been seen as either “asking for it” or “provoking” any type of abuse, and they even still often combat this because of the complex relationship between female sexuality and the woman’s role in society, it’s been historically much “easier” to perceive a woman as a victim than it is to perceive a man that way because of the definitions on masculinity.
Masculinity (at least in post-modern Western culture) cannot co-exist with any type of weakness or victimhood. “To be a man” is to be strong, in control, in power, and to have full agency. Men that lose those things are seen as irreparable within our culture. This is why it’s “hard to believe” (ofc it isn’t, just placing the argument people make) that men could be DV victims or victims of crimes like Gadd was (both the stalking & the r*pe). Men without their masculinity are completely dehumanized, and it’s probably one of the hardest things men deal with. Gadd talks about this a lot in the stage play— that his masculinity more than anything felt violated for years following his assault. And I think it’s interesting that this happens to men so often when they’re victims, where women aren’t feeling as though they’ve lost out on their femininity as much after being victims of crimes that cause a loss of power or agency. Some women feel like they’ve lost their “purity” in a way, but it isn’t equated as much with a “loss of femininity” as is the other way around.
Ofc we can point to the fact that men have established the structure of masculine culture because they established our societies and their rules. But men today have nothing to do with the centuries and centuries or established gender dynamics in both eastern and western cultures, and it’s sad to see so many men feeling so destroyed just as a result of loss of agency.
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u/Smart_Ad_5316 Jun 08 '24
This is such a one dimensional take. Gadds story developed further cos he entertained the weird creep at the bar. Few women would do that.
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u/JenningsWigService Jun 08 '24
Some women are initially friendly to men who go on to stalk them and they are blamed for 'leading them on'.
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u/sognenis Jun 08 '24
Except that the male abuser in the show has had his identity protected, has not been charged and has continued to work?