When you Gertrude too hard,** you end up with a bi-polar op-ed like Bari Weiss’.
No longer.
Now, suddenly, Mitch McConnell is saying, “I believe the women.”
Now, suddenly, Chelsea Handler is saying to Juanita Broaddrick, “I believe you.”
This — despite, or perhaps because of, the predator in the Oval Office — is a cultural watershed.
So it’s a good thing?
And hasn’t the hunt been exhilarating? There’s no small chance that by the time you finish this article, another mammoth beast of prey, maybe multiple, will be stalked and felled.
The huntresses’ war cry — “believe all women” — has felt like a bracing corrective to a historic injustice. It has felt like a justifiable response to a system in which the crimes perpetrated against women — so intimate, so humiliating and so unlike any other — are so very difficult to prove.
So it’s a good thing. Except when it isn’t a good thing.
But I also can’t shake the feeling that this mantra creates terrible new problems in addition to solving old ones.
Why?
It’s because I think that “believing all women” can rapidly be transmogrified into an ideological orthodoxy that will not serve women at all.
And what would possibly make you say that?
I believe that the “believe all women” vision of feminism unintentionally fetishizes women. Women are no longer human and flawed. They are Truth personified. They are above reproach.
But isn’t this what you want, female hegemony to compensate for all the sad feelings you’ve kept bottled up inside?
I believe that it’s condescending to think that women and their claims can’t stand up to interrogation and can’t handle skepticism. I believe that facts serve feminists far better than faith. That due process is better than mob rule.
Oh, the whiplash. Of course it’s condescending, although the word you were searching for is infantalizing, not fetishizing. The entirety of your lived experience is back on the table, from crime to stolen kiss, and you now have the opportunity to punish every man who hurt your feelings.
The biggest sign of it in my life has been the conversations I’ve had with friends and family. While we women revisit our sexual histories, the men I know — old and young, liberal and conservative — are doing the same from the flip side. A Republican man told me that he was considering reaching out to a girl he went on a date with in high school to apologize for kissing her in the car. She didn’t say no, and she kissed him back. But he worries that she felt pressured. A close friend, a progressive, told me about a college hookup he regrets. He is spending time wondering about how the woman thinks about the experience: Did it leave a scar? Or is it arrogant to even assume she remembers his name?
So how exactly would due process work for that Republican man who feels the need to apologize for kissing a girl in his car? Or the progressive close friend and his regrettable college hookup?
And while we’re on the subject of arrogance to assume these maligned women even remember these horrifying sexual experiences, is there any point where women are treated as responsible adults in their sad memories of sex gone awry? Where is the line? Is there a line? Does each woman get to drag it wherever she wants?
*Tuesday Talk rules apply.
**The opening salvo goes all biblical.
Ever since Eve gave Adam that forbidden fruit, demonizing and disbelieving women has been the planet-wide policy.
The editor in me compels me to point out that this may not survive a fact check, there being no hard proof that Eve gave Adam an apple. That said, it is curious that Weiss begins her tale of female tears with an allegorical story of female wrongdoing to show how maligned they’ve been planet-wide.
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Time enough for such introspective ruminations once all the evil penises are gone. And yes, I’ve been saving this one for an appropriately themed Talk Tuesday.
thats a little dark.. even for you, but I get your point..
but I hate her voice, & the beat was hard to dance to.. so on Dick Clark’s meter.. maybe a 2..
What about people who were assaulted by people who aren’t famous enough to get late in life revenge upon.
I had to explain to a young female attorney the other day there is a difference between harrassment and a compliment. The security guard telling me i had nice legs was not cause to convene an inquisition and wage WWWIII. She was appalled that i would “take” that kind of talk.
Seriously? If someone wants to look at my 50 year old legs then go for it. Not everything is harrassment. Not every action is assault.
Offense is now defined by the sensibilities of the recipient rather than the substance or intent of the giver. But if no one says “nice legs” to the sensitive woman, that too will be offensive, as her legs are as worthy of compliment as any.
What if someone had said, “Nice Legs” to Queen Elizabeth 1..
Would she have them committed for being delusional ?
Would she have Commanded “Off With His Head!!” ?
Would she merely ignored them as if they weren’t worthy of a response ?
I’m thinking she would have ignored him.. cuz he was a wanna-be..
& then cut off his head..
Beneath that dour exterior, Liz was kinda randy.
If I’d known cutting off his head was an option I might have gone that route.
And now I’m kind of jealous that for me Elizabeth was shortened to Beth and not Randy Liz.
It’s never too late.
Sorry I’m late to the party.
“That said, it is curious that Weiss begins her tale of female tears with an allegorical story of female wrongdoing to show how maligned they’ve been planet-wide.”
This seems to be a common thread. An article that was shared because “THIS WILL FINALLY MAKE YOU UNDERSTAND” tried to use the analogy of riding a bike on a street with cars to explain what it’s like to be a woman living in a world with men. The very first thing in the article was a big picture of a cyclist illegally riding between two lanes of stopped cars.
Bad analogies are funny that way. Unless you’re saying women inherently suck at analogies, because that would be sexist.
And today the line was dragged right over Garrison Keillor. If he is to be believed* (and why not?), the accusation against him was based on accidental contact that he apologized for, and the woman accepted.
*I keep hearing I should ‘believe’ allegations. Can’t I take them seriously instead?
No matter. He’s been fired, and MPR will do what it can to eradicate his existence. What he did or didn’t do, what it means or doesn’t mean, whether there was am offense for which he deserves to be punished, changes nothing. It’s done. He’s done.
“Lists” are reportedly circulating of suspected media offenders. Those who cut him adrift may well be sweating their own approaching doom.
The NYT description of his molestation is revealing:
Sure. A few of us move in, and there goes the neighborhood.