Monica Lewinsky should be admired for how she continually deals with public shaming

Not one of us can hold up our hands and say we didn’t make a big mistake during our early twenties. We regretted it, but found a way to move forward – we can even laugh at it now. But if you’re Monica Lewinsky, arguably, you can never laugh at your very public mistake. Not when that mistake was an affair with the then-president of the United States, Bill Clinton.

Not when you’re 22 and he is 49, yet you’re the one seen as the manipulator.

She did what so many of us do when we’re young; she fell in love and made a mistake. It was a big one., Lewinsky admits this repeatedly. It hurt many people and it’s no excuse but in layman terms, that’s what it was.  Sure, Clinton was investigated, called out. But today, he is still lauded as a charismatic public figure, despite his many mistakes which included lying to the public – and everyone else in his family – and denying a long-term affair and involvement with an intern. Clinton’s relationship with Lewinsky may have been consensual but it was, on his part, nonetheless a clear abuse of professional and sexual power.

Related: Hillary Clinton won’t discuss her Monica Lewinsky comments, but that’s not the point

For Lewinsky, she is still synonymous with a blue dress; featured in over 100 rap songs – even Beyonce has sung about it, poking fun at all that her life resembled. She was outed and ostracised back then – and she still has to speak about it today.

The Starr investigation. The slut-shaming. The public humiliation.

But turned her life around in recent years, determined to use the profile she had not asked for to help those who might also be a victim of cyber-bullying. With elegance and candidness, she continues to create awareness around the life-long effects that such public torment has on a woman.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by ERIK MADIGAN HECK (@erikmadiganheck) on Feb 25, 2018 at 5:07pm PST

In a new interview with John Oliver for his show Last Week Tonight, Lewinsky talked candidly about the way she was publicly shamed. She made mistakes, she said. She has done and said stupid things. But nothing could compare to what she endured afterwards, an experience she called “terrifying.” In her words:

“It was an avalanche of pain and humiliation. I think that at 24 years old it was really hard to hold on to a shred of dignity or self-esteem when you’re just the butt of so many jokes, of being misunderstood.”