The Johnny Depp-Amber Heard story is all about male entitlement, which is the bedrock of misogyny – a system that fights everyone who tries to stray from sexist beliefs that are hostile to women and girls. Abusive men of privilege feel entitled to everything, from perpetrating violence on their partners to never being named as perpetrators. They feel entitled to a good reputation and to refusing accountability. They feel entitled to dragging their exes into courts to re-traumatise them.
When men face resistance from their victims and are deprived of their ‘right to abuse’, they find it shockingly unbearable and unfair. When their victims try to escape from them, they see it as an affront. They want to drag them back to themselves in legal battles – it’s their entitlement to continue exerting control.