Charles Barkley ‘joked’ about hitting a woman. She doesn’t need to justify speaking up.

Harassment is nothing new for women trying to do their jobs, especially women who work in media. So when Axios reporter Alexi McCammond told the story of a troubling Tuesday night encounter with Charles Barkley, it was as disappointing as it was unsurprising.

The reaction was swift as many expressed their disgust with Barkley’s behavior, even after he publicly apologized the following day, but it didn’t take long for familiar objections to emerge as they often do when a woman speaks publicly about wrongdoing.

Learn how to take a joke.

You need thicker skin.

You’re only doing this for attention.

Just because you got your feelings hurt doesn’t make this a story.

The common theme here is ignoring the behavior of the abuser to determine why the woman decided to come forward in the first place. What’s in it for her? How can she benefit from this? Never mind that Barkley has a history of making inexcusable remarks about violence against women. Never mind that this is yet another example of a female reporter being harassed for trying to do her damn job. The blame is placed on McCammond for “not getting the joke,” not on Barkley for making a joke out of hitting women. It’s a mind-numbing cycle where the problem isn’t the problem itself, but the person who pointed it out. She is minimized to make others feel large, and round and round we go.

There’s little to be gained in exposing a person’s bad behavior, especially if that person is a celebrity with a loyal following willing to go to great lengths to discredit or harass the accuser. When Sports Illustrated’s Stephanie Apstein reported on Brandon Taubman’s reprehensible outburst last month, she was called a liar not only by fans but the entire Houston Astros organization until they backpedaled their way into a half-apology, then fired Taubman days later. In this case, many of Barkley’s supporters seem to have bypassed doubting McCammond’s story and moved straight into questioning why she’s telling the truth.

Some consider McCammond’s tweet to be another example of “cancel culture”, a term often thrown around when people feel uncomfortable seeing others face consequences. Accusing her of trying to ruin Barkley’s career reduces the downfall of celebrities credibly accused of abuse to nothing more than an overreaction, a crutch to avoid holding people accountable for their decisions. It’s an effective intimidation tactic and a painful reminder that for every woman willing to speak up are countless others who don’t do it for fear of harassment or harm to their professional and personal lives.

McCammond shouldn’t have to justify her reasoning for speaking up. Barkley should have to justify why he feels comfortable making a joke out of domestic violence, which is perhaps even more upsetting than the encounter itself. Placing her at the center of the story perpetuates the lie that a person’s motives for exposing the truth are more important than the truth itself. It disregards the fact that a man threatened to hit a woman for doing her job and wrote it off as a joke.

It casts a spotlight on her while keeping Barkley in the shadows alongside the culture of misogyny that’s protected him for years.

Round and round we go.