Morning Reads for Friday, October 20, 2017

Alas and sign on “How “Me Too” Unfairly Maligns Men and Perpetuates Victimhood”. From someone who is not even a feminist or a progressive.

“Because this is all about women (isn’t everything these days?), men have been encouraged not participate by sharing their stories of sexual assault.”

That is actually 100% false. From the very beginning male actors have also shared their stories and been supported. In fact, Barbara Walters is now being criticized for trying to silence Corey Feldman. Also in general feminists have long encouraged male victims of abuse to come forward.

“Similar to the campus kangaroo courts that try and punish men using nothing but (often) baseless accusations, “me too” implies there’s an abundance of nasty, anonymously assaulty men lurking around every corner.”

Seriously? All the people who objected to the Obama administration guidelines on campus proceedings acknowledge that assault is a serious issue. They just didn’t want to sacrifice due process rights to the accused as part of the solution.

Again not a progressive or a feminist – far from either – but being subjected to repeated, degrading catcalls is dehumanizing. This. Has. Been. Scientifically. Proven. And. Quantified. The same thing with incessantly being exposed to insensitive jokes that target your identity (for lack of a better term). And being repeatedly asked out on a date by the same person who won’t take no for an answer especially if that person is a colleague or a manager/employer is something that no one should experience. It is as if this writer has no idea that being subjected to harassing/hostile behavior over a period of time can have even worse physical or emotional effects than suffering a single violent crime, or simply doesn’t care, but again this is something that has been scientifically proven. (Internalized built up stress resulting from continuous harassment and verbal abuse causes heart disease, cancer, drug addiction, mental illness, violent outbursts etc. … all proven).

There are good ways to be a dissenter on this topic and there are bad ways. A good way is to incorporate a critique of third wave feminism. Start with the Andrea Dworkin view of males – thoroughly inconsistent with evolutionary biology and pretty much all psychology research as it is – and then move on to the “class struggle” aspects – Engels and Marx economic and political theories applied to social issues – that treats males as members of a class that is collectively guilty of oppressing women (also a class) so the only way for real change is to alter the class dynamics. For example, both play a role in the theoretical foundations of the campus tribunals issue, as the goal was to cause a change in campus culture that would lead to a significant reduction in assaults, the benefits of which would significantly outweigh the negative of increasing the number of falsely accused males being expelled. One can actually agree that preventing 100 rapes is worth wrongfully expelling 5 guys – especially if the behavior of the 5 guys was questionable to begin with – but should state why policies rooted in Dworkinism and misapplied Marxism will fail in their goal of reducing campus assaults and should be replaced with policies that are rooted in peer-reviewed scientific research as well as proven law enforcement tactics instead.

This “Kemberlee Kaye” either seems unwilling or unable to build a case along those lines or doing anything else productive. Sadly, that seems typical of modern conservative discourse. It makes one long for the days of Irving Kristol and William F. Buckley who – wrongheaded as they might often have been – actually did directly interact with the ideological underpinnings of their opponents rather than rely on things like:

“Whether intended or not, the end result is the blanket maligning of the entirety of maledom and the implication that everyone with a Y chromosome ought to repent for their original sin of being born male. It’s the ultimate man-shaming.”

Even if you believe this to be true, what good does throwing it out there without putting it in the context of refuting the views of people like Eve Ensler and Monique Wittig do? Nothing. It only makes the reader believe that you are at best someone who is insensitive to the experiences of women in this area, and at worst a misogynist who supports the ill treatment of women.