I think it would surprise people following the controversy
surrounding the outing of Aziz Ansani's bad date
with "Grace" just how old this story and the controversy
surrounding allegations of sexual misconduct really are. Clarence Thomas
anyone? Just a little reminder, from October of 1991, that this is not a
new issue:
It goes back farther than that. In its present form, not
surprisingly, to the radical feminism of the mid 1970s. The notorious
Catherine MacKinnon - she of "politically, I call it
rape whenever a woman has sex and feels violated" legendry, made the
case that sexual harassment constituted a form of sex discrimination, which was
banned under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. MacKinnon's line of
thought was adopted by the Equal Employment Opportunities Commision in 1980,
and upheld by the 1986 Supreme Court ruling in Meritor
Savings Bank vs. Vinson, ruling that sexual harassment was indeed a
form of sexual discrimination. Educational institutions were covered
under title IX of the educations amendment, adopted in 1972 and rather
infamously amended
by the Obama administration in 2011, lowering the standard of proof
applicable to on-campus harassment allegations from "clear and
convincing" evidence to a "preponderance of evidence", a
considerably lower bar. These amendments have been recently
revoked by Trump administration education secretary Betsy DeVos, out
of fears that due process for the accused had been largely circumvented by the
Obama era changes. The backlash has been, to put it mildly, notable, despite
many successful lawsuits by expelled male students alleging violation of their
own civil liberties.
Twenty years ago, I was reading a number of books that were trying to raise the alarm over what they considered to be a puritanical and Victorian sexual culture being promoted by feminist theorists in academia. These include:
- Sex,
Art and American Culture, Camille Paglia, 1992
- The
Myth of Male Power, Warren Farrell, 1993.
- Who
Stole Feminism, Christina Hoff Sommers, 1994
- The
Morning After: Sex, Fear and Feminism, Katie Roiphe, 1994
- The
New Victorians: A Young Woman's Challenge to the Old Feminist Order, Rene
Denfeld, 1995
- Heterophobia:
Sexual Harassment and the Future of Feminism, Daphne Patai, 1998
- Ceasefire:
Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality, Cathy
Young, 1999
The foundations for the MeToo movement, what we've seen of feminism on tumblr and twitter and the changes to title IX that occurred during the Obama administration - these foundations were already largely set both ideologically and in the legal system by the late 1980s. The feminist date-rape narrative was even then well established, and something you'd have heard had you gone to college. The problem is that you had to pretty much major in women's studies, or be of the feminist old guard from the 1970s to be exposed to much of the underlying theory beyond just a public service announcement level of analysis. Activists such as Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin and the aforementioned Catherine MacKinnon were even then quite controversial for views that now seem to be treated as if they came out of nowhere on social media circa 2013 or so.
The works of Christina Hoff Sommers and Daphne Patai especially stand out in my mind. C.H Sommers, because Who Stole Feminism quite clearly outlined the influence feminist theorists had acquired in Academia and how their ideology rationalized acquiring that influence and spreading it into other areas of human endeavor - law, media, and so on. Daphne Patai outlines in Heterophobia the precise contours of feminist theory's take on male heterosexuality, why a guilty even if proven innocent lynch mob mentality towards the accused is justified and how, at bottom, a core premise of what would become third wave intersectional feminism was to delegitimize heterosexuality itself. Details emerge in these works over harassment allegations made due to unwanted compliments and gazes that lasted just a little too long.
Make no mistake, many of the allegations of sexuall harassment to have emerged over the years, including that of Harvey Weinstein and the MeToo movement are harrowing. Feminist theory notwithstanding, there's no shortage of male behavior that runs the gamut from cringeworthy to abusive to downright criminal, and even Aziz Ansari's conduct strikes me as deeply problematic, to borrow a term from the twitter crowd. The need for legal protection against sexual harassment is very real.
As I've said elsewhere on Facebook:
The dunderheaded twitter mob accuses #MeToo skeptics of trying to "silence women's voices" or something such. This is not true. Women who have been sexually harassed at work absolutely must come forward and file complaints. As an advocate of worker's rights, I believe that the workplace should be harassment free.
As an advocate of worker's rights, I also believe that workers that are accused of misconduct on the job are also entitled to a fair hearing. Those of us who clamor for due process in the face of sexual misconduct allegations do not do so because we think women are all scheming liars vis-a-vis men. A handful are, the majority are not. Rather, due process is what protects the integrity of the anti-sexual harassment movement. It stops allegations of sexual harassment from being weaponized and abused. Without due process, what stops someone from fabricating an allegation to take out a competitor, or to take out someone whose job they want, or in retaliation for some real or perceived personal slight or another? Historically, during witch hunts and inquisitions of all kinds, accusations were abused in this manner all the time. What will stop it happening now?
The more sociopathic among the SJWs - and they're out there, since the abusers of power are drawn to communities without formal structures of procedure or authority - have no problems with women fabricating false allegations of rape or sexual harassment against men. Men deserve it, after all, because privilege and patriarchy. The ends justify the means. An eye for an eye. While I'm fairly sure most women reject this kind of barbaric thinking, some don't and I'd expect those who don't to be drawn to the forefront of the women's movement. Let's not enable them. Let's not respond to past injustice with injustice now. It is future generations of women, as well as men today who are not responsible for the sins of the past, who will pay the price for this. Is that how the advocates of women's rights want history to remember their cause's moment?
The fact is that given its origins in postmodern feminist theory
and the rejection of liberal notions such as private/public distinction, the
importance of due process, free speech and sexual freedom that these origins imply,
the preference for college kangaroo courts and trial-by-social media that we
see employed by feminist activists to decide sexual harassment allegations shouldn't come as a
surprise. The potential for abuse is only now being recognized, and steadfastly
resisted and denied by even vaguely "liberal", let alone far left social media
mobs.
Warning people online of the dangers posed by postmodern feminist theory was, suffice it to say, a thankless task during the Bush years when the public fears were, not illegitimately, of the erosion of civil liberties at the hands of a militarized neocon establishment, the religious right, and an increasingly radicalized "conservative" movement that was less and less interested in listening to reason than it was in conspiracy theories. Yet it was concerning even then to witness the Obama coalition coalesce around the self flattering narrative that as liberals, they were by definition for fairness and nondiscrimination, and it was therefore inconceivable and a mark of ignorance and bigotry that concerns should be raised about a culture of repression coming from the left. The issue likewise flew under the radar of a conservative movement much more concerned with dismantling government protections for the poor and working classes and eroding civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism. Sad that the monster was not dealt with when it was still relatively small.
It was awfully late in the day by the time the skeptic community responded to atheism plus and gamergate as the earliest attempts at an organized pushback against feminist theory's influence. As we've since seen, "social justice" ideology is now deeply embedded in the culture of Silicon Valley. Later still in the day since concerns raised over the excesses of the MeToo hashtag have begun to emerge in sources ranging from Spiked to the New York Times and even with the venerable feminist author Margaret Atwood, whose dystopian vision of a totalitarian theocracy oppressing women in the name of saving them was even upon its 1985 publication trying to warn us. Suffice it to say, the backlash against all of these outlets for calling the sanctimony of feminism into question has been fierce.
Feminist theory's forty year hegemony in the realm of sexual politics is now paying very real dividends for feminist activists: Millennials are far less sexually active, far less inclined to form heterosexual relationships or marry, and are more likely to consider even invitations to coffee dates and male compliments on a woman's appearance as being harassment, regardless of context. Heterosexual romance and eroticism have considerably faded from popular culture. Absurd and untenable notions of "enthusiastic" consent for every kiss, touch or caress between adult men and women have widespread support among the general public and are even law of the land in some places. It is not thought unreasonable by many that men should just 'know' in advance when a sexual advance is wanted and when it's not and therefore abusive and criminal. Many women respond with knee jerk anger at the very notion of a male finding them physically attractive and complimenting them on it. While they deny holding this view, feminists have been largely successful in equating sexual attraction with sexual objectification in the minds of a considerable portion of the population. And due to a well cultivated siege mentality, they are no more amenable to reasoned argument than the religious right or the Tea Party were.
We've seen online and on college campuses what those who would argue for due process and the retention of the gains of the sexual revolution are up against: an entire generational cohort convinced that any deviation from intersectional social justice, including the centuries old liberal democratic tradition are little more than apologetics for power, privilege and patriarchy. Decades of inactivity, complacency and appeasement across the political spectrum in the face of even the most wretched extremes of feminist theory come at a heavy price: equivalent decades of effort required to push popular attitudes and public policy back to a more even handed stance on the delicate balance between sexual freedom and protection from harassment, not to mention a more effective antidote to the very real scourge of sexual harassment than the proliferation of feminist theory. But it is decades of effort that we have no choice but to invest.
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