By J. DeVoy
Yesterday, Judge Manuel Real of the Central District of California sentenced Michael Barrett, a 48-year-old insurance executive from Chicago, to 30 months in prison for his infamous peephole video of ESPN sportscaster Erin Andrews. Barrett had agreed to a 27-month term, but Real imposed the harshest possible sentence under the Federal guidelines.
Barrett offered a teary apology to his victim. Andrews wasn’t having it.
“You violated me and you violated all women,” Andrews told Barrett. “You are a sexual predator, a sexual deviant and they should lock you up.”
After the sentencing, she said, “Thirty months isn’t enough.”
All women? Tatiana Von Tauber previously considered this issue, and I think she’d disagree. The issue is that voyeurism invades another person’s privacy — “grrl power” is irrelevant.
Andrews’s comments come across as cold and misandrist. The only thing missing are the allegations that Barrett is “creepy” or “weird,” those erstwhile undefinables that girls only know when they see it, but have such broad application that they can stick to anyone. Among young women, creepiness has been reified as a verb – “creeping.” Still, there is no consensus as to its true meaning.
The lesson: Women hate weak men. Here, Erin Andrews eviscerates a peeping tom in Federal court and the media. In contrast, Scott Peterson killed his pregnant wife and was showered with love letters. Within the sports universe, Kobe Bryant was accused of rape by a woman he admitted to having sex with, yet the charges were dropped and his career continues. (The ultimate effects of Tiger Woods’s indiscretions are to be determined.) Ultimately, a 48-year-old insurance executive from Chicago lacked sufficient star power to escape controversy’s gravitational pull.
