The MeToo awakening is an historic moment.
It has the potential to correct long-tolerated abuses and to lead to a new era of understanding
and respect between men and women.
Please let’s not allow it be hijacked by delusions of gender Armageddon.
That’s coming up next on the Factual Feminist.
Harper's Bazaar, a popular fashion magazine, recently ran an article about the notorious
date between Aziz Ansari and an anonymous woman known as “Grace.”
Many asked, "Why didn’t Grace just leave?"
The Harper’s article offered an increasingly common explanation: Perhaps she was frightened.
Women often go along with unwanted sex on dates because, the article claims, “WOMEN
ARE AFRAID MEN WILL MURDER THEM.
The author, MeToo activist Jennifer Wright, quotes a favorite feminist adage from novelist
Margaret Atwood— “Men are afraid women will laugh at them.Women are afraid men will
murder them."
Wright conjures alarming statistics to justify this fear—for example, that “Ninety-eight
percent of homicidal partners are male.”
That figure is beyond misleading.
The author apparently didn’t check the source.
According to the Justice Department, approximately 30% of homicidal partners are female, 70 percent
male.
All of those deaths are tragic, but they do little to support Wright’s fears.
There are more men who kill women than vice versa, but that’s because men are more likely
to kill, period.
And for the most part, they kill other men.
Nearly 80 percent of murder victims are men.
The odds of a woman being killed by her date are infinitesimally small.
But the odds that baseless attacks on men will weaken a great movement are high.
If today’s sexual reckoning is to achieve lasting progress, it must be a human undertaking.
It’s something men and women must work on together.
We need to dispense with “MEN WANT TO KILL US” rhetorical fantasies.
We are not in a war against half of the human race.
Guilt by association is wrong.
So, for that matter, is innocence by association—which is the premise behind the slogan “Believe
all women.”
Women, like men, are fallible beings.
Even feminist standard-bearer Margaret Atwood acknowledged this in a recent article on the
excesses of #MeToo: “My fundamental position,” Atwood said, "is that women are human beings,
with the full range of saintly and demonic behaviors this entails, including criminal
ones.
They're not angels, incapable of wrongdoing.”
Her words should be etched in stone.
The Factual Feminist is also concerned about the hysterical overreaction to anyone who
dares to introduce a note of moderation.
Consider what happened to the actor Matt Damon.
In an interview with ABC in December of 2017, Damon described #MeToo as “totally necessary,”
and said that harassment “has to be eradicated without question.”
But he insisted on nuance.
There is a difference, he said, “between patting someone on the butt and rape or child
molestation.”
There is “spectrum of behavior,” running from the iniquities of Harvey Weinstein to
the boorish indiscretions of Senator Al Franken.
And punishments ought to be proportional: Minor transgressors shouldn’t necessarily
lose their jobs.
In such cases there is a place for remorse, apology, and forgiveness.
Damon’s comments were reasonable and humane.
Who could possibly disagree?
A lot of people, apparently.
28,000 #MeToo'ers signed a petition demanding that Damon be erased from an upcoming film.
Progressive twitter was outraged.
Minnie Driver, Damon’s former co-star, tweeted that he was “systematically part of the
problem.”
She would later explain to the Guardian, “There is no hierarchy of abuse.
… It’s all fucking wrong.”
Her advice to Damon and men everywhere was to remain silent.
“The time right now is for men just to listen.”
Well, I’m a woman, so I don’t have to be silent.
I think Damon was right.
Minnie Driver’s claim that there is “no hierarchy of abuse” is incoherent.
Gradations of harm and degrees of guilt are fundamental to our moral intuitions and our
legal system.
Our criminal laws make many fine distinctions among bad and worse actions, and so do our
judgements of others in everyday live.
As comedian Bill Maher pointed out, “Justice requires weighing things, that is why Lady
Justice is holding a scale and not a sawn-off shotgun.”
And telling men as a species to shut up and listen isn’t progress.
It’s sexism.
It’s tempting to dismiss twitter mobs, internet petitioners, and denunciations from angry
ex-co-stars as just a lot of noise.
But people who are subject to such attacks are rightly fearful for their careers.
But the noise seems to have intimidated Mr. Damon.
On January 16, he issued his apology on the Today Show: “Boy, I really wish I’d listened
a lot more before I weighed in on this,” What I wish is that Damon did not have to
issue a ritual recantation—and that men and women could discuss the issues freely
and rationally.
If women and men of good will work together, they can make historic progress in the fight
against sexual harassment and abuse.
But to succeed, the movement is going to have to channel its outrage and confront its own
excesses.
Let me know your thoughts about what I have said in the comments section.
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Thank you for watching the Factual Feminist.