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Still think Bill Cosby's accusers are looking for attention? That's why you're the problem

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New York Magazine photographed and collected the first-hand stories of 35 of the 46 victims who have accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault in a moving and very important piece.

The portraits were photographed by Amanda Demme, and serve as a visually startling collection of real women who have been victims. First, they had been too scared and ashamed to come forward, but have now taken back their power and made their voices heard.

No longer are they just faceless women who are accusing TV’s favourite dad of sexual misconduct. Now, their words, thoughts, feelings are plainly stated in black and white. Now they have made themselves seen and heard.

The stories these woman tell are sheer horror. They tell of how Bill Cosby drugged and raped them, and then used his influence and power in the media to silence each and every one of them.

The cover of the mag has a rather strong message too. It shows all 35 women who participated in the piece, sitting in rows with a 36th empty chair – for the victims who have not come forward yet and still need to tell their stories.

Noreen Malone, senior editor at New York Magazine, wrote an essay accompanying the piece. In it, she says: “The group of women Cosby allegedly assaulted functions almost as a longitudinal study—both for how an individual woman, on her own, deals with such trauma over the decades and for how the culture at large has grappled with rape over the same time period. [...] The first assumption was that women who accused famous men were after money or attention. As Cosby allegedly told some of his victims: No one would believe you. So why speak up?”

This is the problem with rape culture, and our patriarchal society. There are 46 women, FORTY-SIX WOMEN, who have been silenced, and lived with immense trauma, for years because they were told that no one would believe them. That this man was too powerful to speak against – he would always be believed first. And when the news broke of Cosby’s crimes, who garnered the most support? The man accused of them.

Celebrities like Whoopi Goldberg, according to Channel24, have defended Bill Cosby, even after the release of court documents from 2005 in which the star of The Cosby Show admitted to obtaining Quaaludes with the intent of giving them to women he wanted to have sex with.

Whoopi has now changed her mind about the issue after receiving legal advice and seems to have relinquished her “innocent until proven guilty” line in favour of shock over how most of these women might never actually be able to take Cosby to court due to the statute of limitations in various states in the US.

But her words have already done their damage and she’s not the only person out there who thinks this way.

A simple internet search for “Bill Cosby innocent” yields results (which I will not link to) that actually make my stomach turn – from articles about his being innocent until proven otherwise, to Facebook groups supporting the actor.

But here are 46 women (the total could be higher) who say they have been raped by this man, and who have had to not only relive these stories, but had to deal with the disbelief and backlash of the entire world for speaking up.

These tweets really sum it all up for me

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