The Taylor Frankie Paul Effect: Men Get Words. Women Get Action.

A look into our culture where discourse is for men, but punishment is reserved for women.

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Last week ABC canceled this season of The Bachelorette just three days before it was set to air.

A $50 million production. The work of hundreds of crew and staff. Poof. Gone.

The decision was announced a few hours after TMZ published a video from three years ago that shows the Bachelorette, Taylor Frankie Paul, attacking her ex, Dakota Mortensen in front of her child.

In light of the cancellation, some people started coming to Taylor’s defense.

Which caused a wave of backlash asking, “What on earth?! Did you see the video?!”

Here’s one such Facebook post that garnered over 600 comments:

“I honestly can’t wrap my head around how so many people are out here defending Taylor Frankie Paul when she literally abused Dakota Mortensen. Abuse is abuse… there is no excuse, no justification, no “but…” that makes it okay.

What’s even more frustrating is the double standard. If the roles were reversed and it was Dakota who had done the same thing, people would be tearing him apart without hesitation. But because it’s her, suddenly people are minimizing it, making excuses, or acting like it’s not that serious.

We can’t pick and choose when abuse matters based on who the person is. Accountability should be the same across the board. No one gets a pass for hurting someone else, period.”

This post is right— abuse should not be minimized. There should be consequences for abuse regardless of who is the perpetrator.

This post is also right that there is a double standard at play in how we talk about men, women and abuse.

It just typically runs in the exact opposite direction this post is suggesting.

And look, we don’t know these people. We don’t know exactly what has been going on behind closed doors before or since that video. We are not the jury foreperson responsible for definitively assigning one party "guilty" and the other "not guilty."

But what we can talk about is societal patterns.

I’d like to talk about the societal pattern that Taylor Frankie Paul demonstrates perfectly—when there is wrongdoing, men get words said against them, but women get action taken against them.¹

Collectively we have a lot to say about men right now.

I can see why it seems we are coming down hard on men. We talk about their loneliness, their anger, their violence, their relationships. There are headlines, think pieces, documentaries and podcasts— we are obsessed with talking about what’s going wrong with men.

Men are facing an abundance of criticism. Maybe even more than ever before (more on that in a minute).

And yet… while our words may come down harshly against men, our actions…. do not.

That Facebook post is right about one thing: there have been a lot of words said against Dakota Mortensen:

• Liz Plank said, “That video has been sitting wrong with me, and here's why. He's the one filming. He's the one claiming to be in danger. And yet in the police bodycam footage, he is calm and controlled, narrating the whole thing with an unsettling, almost rehearsed precision, while the woman he says was attacking him can barely speak. She is activated, disregulated, falling apart at the seams, begging police to remove him from her home, while he stands there and narrates calmly and clearly. The contrast feels eerie.”

• Anna Bash said, “Read the police report- when that video was recorded, she had already been thrown multiple times to the ground.”

• Mayci Neeley, friend of Taylor’s and fellow Mormon Wife™, said of Dakota during season 1 press, “He sabotages things. Why do you think Taylor didn’t show up today? Of course, it’s always him behind the scenes sabotaging things… Any time Taylor has a big even coming up he purposely gets in fights with her… he sabotages all her exciting things.”

There is conversation against Dakota.

But conversation is not consequence.

Whatever happened between Dakota and Taylor, one thing is clear: immediate disciplinary action was taken against Taylor Frankie Paul when allegations came to light.

Even though that video is three years old and network executives knew she was already on probation for it, still it only took three hours of that video going public for ABC to pull the entire season.

And the consequences didn’t stop there.

Taylor lost custody of her child. She lost brand deals. Her other show stopped filming.

And to be clear: abuse should have consequences.

But is this level of immediate, life-altering fallout how we respond to abuse across the board?

It makes you think of someone else…

There is someone else in the public eye who also has evidence of abuse against them: charges of violent sexual assault of a 13 year old girl, 28 women accusing him of sexual abuse, 24 felony charges, evidence of illegal insider trading, over 5000 lawsuits filed against him….

Aaaaaand he’s still the President of the United States.

Now, to be sure Trump has words said against him. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find any person in the 21st century with more ink spilled in criticism against him.

But while the words are many, the action is infuriatingly lacking.

It makes you think of another US President remaining in office after a sexual act with a subordinate.

It makes you think of Bill Clinton.

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There certainly were a lot of words said against Bill Clinton in his second term. The press had a field day. But he remained in office, while the woman, Monica Lewinsky lost her job and could not find employment for years. His life recovered, hers was tarnished for decades. In her own words, she lost “almost everything.”

It makes you think of the Epstein files.

One of the largest sex trafficking rings ever discovered, sexual assault of minors, reproductive violence. Hundreds of men implicated. There are names, flight logs, pictures, receipts, eye witnesses, the testimony of dozens of victims.

And yet. Out of all the rapists, who is the only person in the Epstein files currently in jail?

A woman.

Let me say that again.

Out of the dozens of men implicated for sex trafficking and sexually abusing children, the only person in jail is a woman.

Some of the many men implicated in the Epstein files vs Ghislaine Maxwell.

There have been so very many words said against these men.

But words are not action.

It makes you think of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.

Even though a court of law found Johnny Depp guilt of 12 counts of assault against Amber, he still has his career, his fame and fortune. Amber meanwhile, sued not for assault, but for defamation of Johnny, ironically was the one who lost her fame, career, status, reputation, friends, family and home— having to move to Spain due to dozens of death threats deemed credible by the FBI. All for outing Johnny as her abuser.

It makes you think of prostitution laws throughout the centuries.

Men got sermons in church to be chaste and faithful. They got complaints from the women in their lives when they were not. But the woman got arrested for selling sex while the men purchasing sex faced no consequence.

It makes you think of abortion laws.

Women who get impregnated are arrested and punished for seeking abortion while the men who impregnate them face no consequence whatsoever.

It makes you think of the first time Taylor Frankie Paul was canceled.

When Taylor spoke publicly of “the swinging scandal” when soft swinging became hard swinging between her and another husband in the group, she faced immediate consequences. She lost her marriage, her home, friends, income via brand deals. Most people assumed she couldn’t come back from it.

In the five years since, she has repeatedly taken full accountability for what went down.

Meanwhile, we still do not even know the NAME of the other husband this happened with. He got to keep his job, his career, his reputation. He has faced no public cancelation.

And this, despite the fact that when she describes what happened, she doesn’t even remember because she was black out drunk.²

Despite this sounding a whole awful lot like sexual assault on his part, he has never faced any public accountability.

But if the roles were reversed…

That Facebook post says, “but if the roles were reversed….”

Girl. We don’t have to imagine, the roles are reversed all the time.

• 83 NFL players have been arrested for domestic violence since 2000. Yet networks do not cancel the showing of their next games hours after the public finds out. The public doesn’t even usually find out at all. Their careers go on unaffected.

• Sean Penn, Brad Pitt, Mel Gibson and Gary Oldman have all had domestic violence charges against them. Far from canceling their movies, all have been awarded Oscars after their abuse came to light.

• Even within the Bachelor franchise, Colton Underwood has harassment charges against him and they didn’t pull his season of the Bachelor. Instead, he has been cast in five other reality shows since.

• If you want an example with actual video footage of abuse—Veronica Rodriguez, a former Air National Guard member filmed her assaulter, a military officer, just like Dakota did Taylor. But instead of her assaulter facing any consequences, the court charged HER with a felony for not asking his consent to be filmed.

Saying if the roles were reversed Dakota would get it worse reminds me of when Piers Morgan said that if he made a movie that treats women the way the Barbie movie treats men he would be executed. But then Christopher Nolan made a movie that treats women FAR WORSE by every metric than how Barbie treats men, and he was not executed. He was awarded best director for that movie.

That Facebook post is probably right that if the roles were reversed people would be tearing Dakota apart. But would we be taking his away his job, his future career opportunities, his kids and his life?

History shows this is unlikely.³

Why does it feel so new to hear criticism against men?

We often forget just what an unprecedented time we are living in.

Before social media, our ability to have collective conversations on a national or global scale was dependent on the publishing industry (books and magazines), the entertainment industry (film and TV) and the press (the news).

If you wanted to start a conversation with millions of people, you had to pass through those gate keepers.

And guess who ran these industries? Men.

Whereas now, hundreds of women hop on social media everyday and speak to an audience of millions.

Historically, it definitely feels new to hear so many words spoken against men because this was simply not a possibility until relatively recently.

Also, we have a very long history of giving women good reason to keep quiet about men. We have centuries of evidence of women who spoke out against men being institutionalized, drugged for hysteria, beaten, abandoned or burnt at the stake for witchcraft.

From the 16th all the way to the 19th century, outspoken women were silenced with a scold’s bridle- a metal muzzle with a tongue depressor. In some parts of Europe, it was customary when a husband turned his wife in, for him to parade her around the town in a scold’s bridle to further deter her and any female on-lookers from speaking badly about their husbands.

It wasn’t until 1975 that most U.S. states even allowed wives to bring criminal action against her husband for inflicting injury upon her.

So yes, women are now speaking out against men. And yes, this feels new. Because historically speaking, it is. We aren’t used to it, so the criticism feels like an all-out attack.

But we can’t mistake criticism for consequences.

When it comes to words, a lot has changed. But when it comes to action, very little has changed.

Accountability should be the same across the board.

That Facebook post says, “We can’t pick and choose when abuse matters based on who the person is. Accountability should be the same across the board.”

And it should be. Truly.

But accountability isn’t measured in how loudly we condemn something. It’s measured in what actually happens next:

Who loses the job. Who loses the child, the income, the platform.

Should domestic violence perpetrators face accountability? Yes absolutely.

But all perpetrators, not just the women perpetrators.

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Want to de-patriarchify your own head? Cool me too. Our next Matriarchal Blessing book club book is going to help us do that. The book is The Patriarchs: The Origins of Inequality by Angela Saini. We will meet April 19 at 11:00am PT to discuss it (registration link will come closer to meeting). Join us by becoming a paid subscriber.

Also! I will be leading a black-out poetry session at a women’s retreat in Seabeck, Washington April 24-26. There will be nature walks, a drag show, arts and crafts and classes on boundaries. There are currently 9 spots left. More info and registration here. I’d love to see you there!

1. I’m not here to absolve Taylor or say that women shouldn’t get action taken against them when they commit a crime, I just want to observe the pattern that women face more severe punishment than men for the same crimes.

2. This is how she told the story on the podcast The Viall Files:

Taylor: [describing a party the three couples involved in the soft swinging were at] “I get drunk. I black out within the first 10 minutes and I’m like ‘I gotta go.’ So I call a friend to pick me up.”

[She goes to her friend’s house. The husband who is not her husband calls to ask if he can come over.]

“I’m belligerent. Like, I’m drunk… So the guy comes over and we hook up at my friend’s house. And I don’t remember much of it. I won’t say, like I don’t want to call it anything, but I just don’t remember much of it. I was pretty blacked out. But I cannot say like what had happened in that room. I do know I slept with him. I woke up very messed up down there. And that was really, really bad” *starts crying “Sorry I don’t know if I’ve fully healed from that yet because that’s just so shitty to do to someone.”

That shitty person she is speaking of is herself, not him.

3. As it is, in the altercation from the video, on the police body cam footage Taylor says that Dakota locked her in the garage and physically hurt her before he started recording when he let her out, and yet she was placed on probation and he has not faced any consequences.