Posted on 01/07/2018 10:59:20 AM PST by Kaslin
While the Me Too movement has brought down creepers in various industries, some feminists are feeling that this whole moment could be coming off the hinges. It’s devolved from rooting out legitimate predators via shared stories of sexual harassment to an inquisition-like mentality where some accusations are unproven. No, this is not to marginalize the women who came forward and torched Hollywood heavyweight Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Mark Halperin, Louis C.K. and Charlie Rose. C.K. admitted to his misdeeds, as did Halperin and Rose. C.K’s latest movie has been shelved, while Rose and Halperin were fired from CBS News and NBC News respectively. Matt Lauer was fired from the Today Show for gross sexual misconduct as well.
Yet, in an op-ed for The New York Times, Daphne Merkin wrote how there are multiple ways the Me Too movement coul fray. She says that we seem to be going back and viewing women as frail “Victorian housewives.” She cited a pair of Manhattan feminists, who tried to remove a Balthus painting of a young girl in a sexually provocative pose. That’s censorship, and luckily the campaign ended in failure. She also noted the lack of due process when it comes to these accusations, the absence of clarity between sexual harassment/assault and “inappropriate conduct,” and the “re-moralization” of sex based on a corporate and legalistic consensus. Merkin added that some of her feminist friends are criticizing some of the recent allegations, telling fellow women to suck it up, asking whether female predators are getting a pass, and lamenting how flirting has become an inappropriate activity:
…privately, I suspect, many of us, including many longstanding feminists, will be rolling our eyes, having had it with the reflexive and unnuanced sense of outrage that has accompanied this cause from its inception, turning a bona fide moment of moral accountability into a series of ad hoc and sometimes unproven accusations.
[…]
The women I know — of all ages — have responded by and large with a mixture of slightly horrified excitement (bordering on titillation) as to who will be the next man accused and overt disbelief.
Publicly, they say the right things, expressing approval and joining in the chorus of voices that applaud the takedown of maleficent characters who prey on vulnerable women in the workplace.
In private it’s a different story. “Grow up, this is real life,” I hear these same feminist friends say. “What ever happened to flirting?” and “What about the women who are the predators?” Some women, including random people I talk to in supermarket lines, have gone so far as to call it an outright witch hunt.
[…]
I think this confusion reflects a deeper ambivalence about how we want and expect people to behave. Expressing sexual interest is inherently messy and, frankly, nonconsensual — one person, typically the man, bites the bullet by expressing interest in the other, typically the woman — whether it happens at work or at a bar. Some are now suggesting that come-ons need to be constricted to a repressive degree. Asking for oral consent before proceeding with a sexual advance seems both innately clumsy and retrograde, like going back to the childhood game of “Mother, May I?” We are witnessing the re-moralization of sex, not via the Judeo-Christian ethos but via a legalistic, corporate consensus.
Stripping sex of eros isn’t the solution. Nor is calling out individual offenders, one by one. We need a broader and more thoroughgoing overhaul, one that begins with the way we bring up our sons and daughters.
These are scary times, for women as well as men. There is an inquisitorial whiff in the air, and my particular fear is that in true American fashion, all subtlety and reflection is being lost. Next we’ll be torching people for the content of their fantasies.
It’s certainly worth a read; a grounded critique about if we’re rushing to judgment, coupled with uncertainty about whether we're on the right path to finding solutions.
If you really want to be a proper liberal, you must develop not just your outrage, but your nuanced sense of outrage.
BRILLANT! - Need a image of the Guinness guy shouting it!
There was a story set to break a few weeks ago in the New York Times about some high profile Broadway people that never did. I saw this on a Broadway chat board. Wonder if some of them were pedophiles.
“...series of ad hoc and sometimes unproven accusations.”
Translation:
Uh...too many leftists are getting caught up in this. We better take it down a notch so we are only taking out male students in universities.
Yes, the pound me too movement is now dangerous . . . because the idiot liberals realize they’re getting hammered by it
BINGO. The WrongWay Gang were taking potshots at Trump and inadvertently shot their own bloated a$$es
BINGO
I’m still waiting for someone to release the names of the harassers in congress who have had their cases paid for by the taxpayers.
The left started this movement, hoping to take down Trump, but it ended up taking down mainly liberals. That’s why the #metoo movement has pretty much ended.
Men, now increasingly loathe to being accused of a hyped-up allegation of sexual misconduct for any type of even mild advance towards women, begin to limit their contact with women (i.e., dates).
Meaning women are beginning to notice losing access to “free stuff” (drinks, meals, gifts, etc.). They (even feminists) still like that of the “patriarchy.”
Did he brush up against her butt?
Did he touch her butt?
Did he grab her butt?
Did her hang on a while?
What did he say while doing this?
I remember when I was a child watching a movie about Dr. Peter Marshall. “A Man Called Peter” was the title, I think. Very good biography of his life.
Thanks for the sermon excerpt.
That was neat. And very true. Thanks for posting.
Well, it served its purpose (Roy Moore) and is proving ineffectual against President Trump, so ...
Time to shelve it and try something else.
Name names! Don’t suffer in silence! (No videos please!)
Thanks for posting this.
Like I said. If the ladies think they are mad now just wait until men stop paying attention to them.
This was started to hurt PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP. Instead, it’s snared a bunch of leftie bedwetters.
They need to shut this down so that they can start building up that creeper Joe Biden for 2020.
Thank you for posting that - very interesting read.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.