It’s perhaps telling that Amanda Marcotte’s old Twitter biography photo was taken in a bar, and that it advertises Bud Light, though it does predate the Dylan Mulvaney s(tuff).
In 2017, the #MeToo movement took the nation by storm. A veritable flood of women, and some men, spoke out about their own experiences with sexual abuse, leading to a slew of firings, lawsuits, arrests and social opprobrium of the accused, especially since so many accusers produced compelling evidence. Despite this, it was barely weeks before the backlash began, with countless articles about how #MeToo had gone “too far,” despite scant evidence that innocent men were getting entangled. That response swelled until it overcame #MeToo, which has largely faded into the background.
Some actually guilty men did lose their jobs, then-Senator Al Franken (D-MN) and NBC News’ Tom Brokaw being among the most notable. Hollywood agent Harvey Wallbanger Weinstein wound up in jail, with felony convictions in both New York and the Pyrite State.
But it’s also true that there were false accusations which harmed the accused, as even Miss Marcotte acknowledged by mentioning, via a quote from Matt Walsh that she listed dismissively, the “Duke lacrosse/UVA-style hoax”. She even noted, in her 17th paragraph:
Feminists and journalists are wise to use words like “alleged” and to be clear that the evidence has not been fully evaluated in a court of law, and it is true that there remains much about this case that is unknown.
But I do love this one:
In this case, no one is required to have an opinion about the accuser’s character. They don’t know her history or her life or why she was even at the party, beyond her stated desire to have some fun. They could, like most decent people, consider the allegations and assume that, even if there is not a crime here, what is described should never happen to anyone. Shutting up is free.
Amanda Marcotte, telling other people to shut up? Did she not see the irony in that when she wrote it?
Also see: Lisa Carr, “Marcotte Thinks #MeToo Has Not Gone Far Enough“
But the past decade of Trumpism has largely been built on stirring up male anger at women’s growing equality. Paranoid and unsupported claims that women have immense power to ruin men with false accusations have been the bread-and-butter of a MAGA media industry designed to exploit men’s resentment for profit. Their audiences yearn to hear that Jane Doe is the real bad guy here, and so attacking her without a single shred of real evidence against her is an opportunity that many right-wing pundits can’t seem to pass up.
Despite the hysterical claims of its critics, #MeToo was never about ruining the lives of innocent men. In a very real sense, the movement was about leveling the playing field, which is so dramatically tilted against victims that it makes justice nearly impossible to achieve. No one truly disputes the importance of due process to handle accusations of sexual violence. That’s why Jane Doe is going through the court system. It’s also why it’s good that, in light of new information, the district attorney is re-opening the case.
But due process is endangered if victims can’t report allegations without facing public abuse and threats of being falsely accused themselves that it becomes psychologically impossible to live their lives. As its name suggested, that was the whole point of #MeToo: to create enough solidarity between victims and allies to make it safe for victims to speak out without their lives being destroyed. If the right really believes in the value of due process, then they would let it play out, instead of dogpiling and harassing accusers so that future victims are too scared to report crimes.
Miss Marcotte’s concluding paragraphs, and really her entire article, are based on the assumption, and I suspect her personal belief, that Lucy Craig’s accusations are true. The problem with her assertion that “#MeToo was never about ruining the lives of innocent men,” it certainly has ruined the lives of some innocent men. When the activists doxxed the names and addresses of the accused, they fouled up and doxxed a wholly innocent man who happened to have the same name as one of the accused. The three Duke lacrosse team members who were falsely accused suffered harm, even though they were wholly innocent, as did the entire team, which had its season cancelled, along with whatever social consequences happened to the team members before the falsity of the charges was exposed.
The credentialed media across the land have a policy of concealing the name of alleged rape victims because it is a heinous crime which has serious social issues, something I see as wise, but they also publish the names of the accused, who may or may not be innocent. The Salon writer’s article makes no mention of that, and I suspect that it is because she sees all of the accused as at least guilty of something.
There is another issue. Miss Craig’s accusations state that she was drunk and had been drinking before she ever got to the frat house. She was going there for a threesome with two guys, and her accusations state that it got well out-of-hand, including ketamine and additional sex with men with whom she did not consent. I do not take any position on the truth or falsity of her accusations, but when an intoxicated woman goes to a frat house party in which the man are drinking as well, it must raise the question: if the woman was unable to consent, how is it that the men can be held responsible for their own actions? If drunk sex is rape, have both parties not raped each other? How do we judge, after the fact, which party was more intoxicated than the other?
It will never feel like justice, to anyone, but there are some things that the laws simply cannot address.