Me Too

Cathryn DeNeueve et. al wrote:

In fact, #MeToo has led to a campaign, in the press and on social media, of public accusations and indictments against individuals who, without being given a chance to respond or defend themselves, are put in the exact same category as sex offenders. This summary justice has already had its victims: men who’ve been disciplined in the workplace, forced to resign, and so on., when their only crime was to touch a woman’s knee, try to steal a kiss, talk about "intimate" things during a work meal, or send sexually-charged messages to women who did not return their interest.

This frenzy for sending the "pigs" to the slaughterhouse, far from helping women empower themselves, actually serves the interests of the enemies of sexual freedom, the religious extremists, the reactionaries and those who believe — in their righteousness and the Victorian moral outlook that goes with it — that women are a species "apart," children with adult faces who demand to be protected.

Men, for their part, are called on to embrace their guilt and rack their brains for "inappropriate behavior" that they engaged in 10, 20 or 30 years earlier, and for which they must now repent. These public confessions, and the foray into the private sphere or self-proclaimed prosecutors, have led to a climate of totalitarian society.

The purging wave seems to know no bounds. The poster of an Egon Schiele nude is censored; calls are made for the removal of a Balthus painting from a museum on grounds that it’s an apology for pedophilia; unable to distinguish between the man and his work, Cinémathèque Française is told not to hold a Roman Polanski retrospective and another for Jean-Claude Brisseau is blocked. A university judges the film Blow-Up, by Michelangelo Antonioni, to be "misogynist" and "unacceptable." In light of this revisionism, even John Ford (The Searchers) and Nicolas Poussin (The Abduction of the Sabine Women) are at risk.

Full Text: https://www.worldcrunch.com/opinion-analysis/full-translation-of-french-anti-metoo-manifesto-signed-by-catherine-deneuve

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

For a respectable journalist nowaday to start such a work is very risqué. Nobody in his or her right mind wants to be seen as pro-sexual maniac or anti-MeToo. And the widow would have to agree, for such a journalistic investigation to be ethical.

As for non-respectable journalists -- the sensationalist, irrational, populist part of the UK press --, has Brexit stopped being the fascinating train wreak it was last time I checked? Did the royals stop breeding? Did Trump stop tweeting?

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

I agree, also because I don't rule out the possibility of his innocence.

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@Olivier5,

oh please

1. if there was the slightest suggestion that the man was manipulated into suicide or that the women were lying, media would be all over it

2. no one asks survivors if matters should be investigated

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Catherine Deneuve.

I haven't read the full text yet; sympathize with the intention and your quote. It's been stearnly rebuked by the current and past Ministers of Gender Equality and well... many personalities and feminists as tone-death, not the right timing, illustrative of deeply-rooted internalisation of sexual objectification in French unseemly gallic and erotomaniac culture... All sorts of things...

So now I teally need to read it.

3 Replies

@Olivier5,

That's a very good reason to continue the investigations.

That is why politicians here go on leave while matters are being investigated. Step aside, let the investigation proceed. If innocent, you will be exonerated. It happens regularly. The Mike Duffy case here is in/famous.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

I might wish to know why my partner had to die such an awful death.

why they chose to

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@Olivier5,

but otherwise - yes

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

many personalities and feminists

and just regular people

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

1. There is a suggestion that he was already being bullied in the Welsh cabinet for some time, with effects on his mental health. Who bullied him? Why? Is that not odd? Could it be that this person(s) who bullied him for years cranked up the pressure?

2. I don't know. I guess you're right but IMO an ethical journalist would require the widow's support and help to have any chance to do a good work. for his work to have some other mandate or justification than just "let's thrown some more dirt at a dead man for money".

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@Olivier5,

That's extreme and completely over the top. First off it's the Welsh Assembly, not Westminster. It's not the allegation that's wrong, but the procedure that was followed, party members knew he had mental health problems, and he wasn't allowed to know what was specifically alleged.

There needs to be proper procedures set up for cases like this, but suicides of alleged perpetrators should not mean the matter is swept under the carpet. Michael Fallon resigned because he knew he was guilty of being way too touchy feely with young women he came into contact with. That's a positive.

There is a lad's culture in Parliament, that needs to stop.

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@Olivier5,

Quote:

It's been stearnly rebuked by the current and past Ministers of Gender Equality and well... many personalities and feminists as tone-death

Of course it has. I don't know too much about French politics. In the US, the way you react to these things has everything to do with political ideology (far more than gender).

The Atlantic (an intelligent left-leaning magazine) points out that Democratic men are 31 percentage points more likely to support feminist ideas and policies than Republican woman.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/the-partisanship-of-feminism/548423/

This is a partisan political issue here. I suspect (but don't know) that this is similar in other countries. The problem is that the Left in the US is pushing this to the extreme, into ridiculousness. That will make the political backlash all the more powerful.

I am a liberal on most issues. And, I have a daughter. I don't think that this feminist extremism or the resulting backlash will ultimately be good for anyone.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

I think current laws and due process should evidently apply to all, and thankfully still do apply, in the sense that if any man (or woman) has lost his job, life, or honor unjustly, he can sue...

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

In a political witch hunt, whether it is McCarthyism or MeToo, due process is broken. In either case, people still had due process in court. It didn't matter at all. The real damage, the destruction of reputations and careers, is done outside any legal protection.

If you lose you reputation, ability to work, or your life based only on allegations, the due process you might get in a legal proceeding doesn't help very much. These allegations and political attacks have very serious consequences with very little protection for the people facing them.

My Uncle was a victim of McCarthyism. Once they accused him of being a communist he lost his job and his career. His name was tarnished. He had no chance to defend himself.

Fortunately my Uncle didn't take is own life. If he had, as a family member I would have been upset if they had continued to investigate him after his death.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Okay so I read it. Overal I agree. There're some clumsy or poorly argued parts, the point that women are not necessarily traumatised forever by a mere groping is simply true and worth stating but heavily belabored and given a sordid and downright wrong example on frotage... The author (not Deneuve) could have avoided a solid paragraph there. So there's some stuff to legitimately disagree with, but also (and mainly IMO) strong points...

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

I hope you read that in the original French Wink

.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Ze juicy bits yes but the full text is on le Monde pay site. So i read the english translation for exhaustivity. Shame on me.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I was appalled when Nihm implied that the reason this loss of life was tragic was because the guy couldn't have been shamed more first.

I think my post was quite clear that I found this story to be replete with tragedies. The toxic culture of bullying (if those accusations are true). The serial sexual harassment (if those accusations are true). The accused person being sacked but not informed about why exactly he was sacked (if that accusation is true). Above all, of course, a man feeling forced to choose suicide as only way out. That's a tragedy whatever it was that ultimately triggered his act -- whether it was the alleged history of bullying, his mental health problems otherwise, the accusations of sexual harassment because they weren't true and he felt he couldn't defend himself, or the accusations of sexual harassment because they were true and he felt he couldn't defend himself.

You seem to have made up your mind which of these it must have been, when I've not come across evidence that would conclusively tell us either way... have you been following the story that closely? Or are you maybe jumping to conclusions on the basis of your own preoccupations?

Finally, yes: if these women were telling the truth, the fact that their stories are now forgotten and it seems they will never be investigated is tragic too. I think that was at least worth mentioning.

maxdancona wrote:

Do you think justice would require something more to be done to him.

This story seems like such a jumbled mess of failures and tragedies that it's definitely beyond me to identify exactly how justice could be served. But it seems to me that, whether the accusations were true or false, establishing it one way or another would still help. If it turns out he was hounded into death over false accusations, I'm sure you'd agree justice would be served by finding evidence of such. If he did actually harass those women, justice would still be served by establishing that too - not because any more punishment can still be meted out, but because the women would deserve to see it established that they weren't lying.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

A human being commits suicide after being bullied and run off from his job based on unsubstantiated rumors....

The way I understood the story (but so much has been written about its many twists and turns that I might well have missed something), the First Minister received allegations by three women that this politician had sexually harassed them.

It seems odd to me to characterize "three women accused someone of harassing them" as "unsubstantiated rumors". Unsubstantiated, yes -- accusations by definition are, prior to investigation (and an investigation was going to be carried out). Rumors? I thought the First Minister's office had received allegations from the women themselves, not some second- or third-hand rumors - is that wrong?

It also seems curious to me that you dismiss the allegations of harassment as "unsubstantiated rumors," but apparently accept the allegations of bullying at face value. Why do you accept the latter as swiftly as you dismiss the former?

1 Reply

@nimh,

Quote:

It seems odd to me to characterize "three women accused someone of harassing them" as "unsubstantiated rumors". Unsubstantiated, yes -- accusations by definition are, prior to investigation (and an investigation was going to be carried out). Rumors? I thought the First Minister's office had received allegations from the women themselves, not some second- or third-hand rumors - is that wrong?

He was fired and publicly shamed before the investigation was carried out. This is guilty until proven innocent.

How is this different from any other witch hunt driven by any other public outrage? In the US we had the McCarthy Witch Hunts (I talked about my uncle's experience with that). People were accused of being Communists, they were fired and publicly shamed based on allegations.

That is how these things work (whether it is Salem, or McCarthy, or MeToo). The public is out for blood. Anyone who is accused can't defend themselves. And anyone who questions the public hysteria is attacked (even women who are questioning MeToo are being pretty viciously attacked).

1 Reply

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