Male celebrities treated like kings,young girls dismissed as ‘groupies’ – this is a highly gendered sex scandalThe charge could not be more damning: we now know that one of this country’s most admired institutions allowed a hugely prolific sexual predator to flourish in its midst for almost half a century. Dame Janet Smith’s report into the crimes committed by Jimmy Savile in connection with his work at the BBC has identified 72 victims, beginning with the rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1959. The DJ’s final known assault occurred during a recording of Top of the Pops in 2006.
Savile was not the sole beneficiary of a culture that regarded celebrities as untouchable; another report has found that the presenter Stuart corridor abused 21 victims, or the youngest of whom was just 10 years old,at the BBC between 1967 and 1991. There is no doubt that the BBC was (and is) in awe of what’s called “talent”, or that a culture of deference towards celebrity has a lot to retort for. But despite all the hand-wringing that’s gone on since Savile was exposed, or I’m still waiting for an acknowledgement of the single most salient (significant; conspicuous; standing out from the rest) fact: like most scandals involving sexual abuse on this scale,this is a highly gendered phenomenon.
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Source: theguardian.com