Beware the #MeToo Furies
The #MeToo movement has given me the willies from the very first moment I read about it. It seemed, and still seems, designed to allow unfounded accusations to be disseminated, accepted on faith, and proceed to destroy men’s lives.
Note I use the word “willies.” Being a ballet aficionado, I’m well aware of this possible derivation [emphasis mine]:
How did “the willies” get its name?
Some historians point to productions of the ballet “Giselle,” which debuted in Paris in the 1840s. In it, a young heroine falls in love with a man pretending to be someone else. In reality, he’s a scoundrel who’s already engaged to another woman. When the heroine discovers the betrayal during a passionate dance scene, she dies of a broken heart and joins the Queen of the Wilis, who is accompanied by a host of female spirits who have also been scorned. Together, these ghosts — known collectively as the Wilis — seek revenge upon men they encounter in the haunted woods by dancing them to death. To see the Wilis appear as apparitions on stage probably was enough to give viewers a little fright, something that eventually led to the common term “the willies” [source: Crabb].
Here are the Wilis, marshaling their vengeful forces prior to dancing the flawed hero of the ballet, Albrecht, to death (hint: later they come close, but don’t quite succeed). Myrtha, their queen, is ordinarily played by a tall, strong dancer with a big jump and the ability to look coldly stern:
There are the willies, and then there are the Furies, whom I mentioned in the title of this post. I’m with Camille Paglia on that:
The headlong rush to judgment by so many well-educated, middle-class women in the #MeToo movement has been startling and dismaying. Their elevation of emotion and group solidarity over fact and logic has resurrected damaging stereotypes of women’s irrationality that were once used to deny us the vote. I found the blanket credulity given to women accusers during the recent U.S. Senate confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh positively unnerving: it was the first time since college that I truly understood the sexist design of Aeschylus’s Oresteia, whose mob of vengeful Furies is superseded by formal courts of law, where evidence is weighed.
When I wrote about this topic earlier, I added:
…I agree that this entire phenomenon has “has resurrected damaging stereotypes of women’s irrationality,” but what it really has done is even more extreme. It hasn’t just resurrected those stereotypes; to a certain extent it has actually tended to validate them.
I say that with great sorrow and a sense of horror. And I certainly do not think that women should not be allowed to vote. But not only have I been observing this phenomenon of all-too-common irrationality in women for a long time, I’ve also observed that a small but vocal number of women say this makes women superior to men, because rationality and due process are the inventions of privileged white guys and therefore bad.
I will add that the last couple of decades have brought home to me the irrationality not just of so many women, but of so many men as well. And that seems to be increasing, too.
Hey, let’s have a heaping dose of irrationality all around. And while we’re at it, let’s destroy the lives of those men who are targeted.
Why am I writing about this again? Yesterday I read this article in Reason, that’s why. As if we needed reminding. It is impossible to adequately summarize what happened to Jonathan Kaiman at the hands of his #MeToo accusers (and many of their female and male enablers, I might add), so I’m afraid you’ll just have to read it. But I will say this: not only are the accusers’ stories just their own unsupported descriptions of sexual encounters, but even if we were to stipulate, for the sake of argument, that their descriptions are entirely accurate, they still do not constitute anything approaching a sexual violation on the part of this man.
Accusations are for filing with the proper authorities and duking it out. These days it’s no longer so easy to succeed with accusations in colleges (Kaiman’s did not involve a college setting, but many do), which used to offer every protection for the accuser and essentially none for the accused, but it’s still not all that difficult to make charges in college settings stick if they have any substance whatsoever.
But if accusations are posted for public consumption in order to get attention and sympathy for the accuser and to destroy the accused, they should be met with disdain and/or ignored. The fact that huge swaths of society not only tolerate the practice of such social destruction without evidence, but go along with the game and perform the shunning of the accused, is terrible.
Unless you are actually raped and/or threatened with a weapon or with loss of job, you are completely responsible for your own sexual decisions, including succumbing to pleading through your own desire to please and not make waves. If you want to act like an adult and have consensual sex (which the Kaiman accusations involved), then be an adult and take responsibility for yourself. And that includes your own inebriation.
Many women today – including Kaiman’s accusers – want to be treated like adults and act like adults sexually, and yet take no responsibility whatsoever for their own choices. And #MeToo all too often has a built-in contagion effect that is obvious even in the hashtag.
One example from the article, about how far such accusations have gone into the preposterous:
One woman, who had an intermittent but long-running sexual relationship with [a man named Smith], said he insisted that she wear a specific kind of eye makeup before they had sex. (Smith denied this and other allegations.) Katie Herzog of The Stranger noted that this woman later tweeted that such behavior by Smith constituted “rape.”
And there’s no protection in avoiding sex, either, because sex is unnecessary for offense to be taken by today’s Furies:
Philadelphia magazine reports that in March 2016, Harris was in Las Vegas at the annual meeting of the Society for Photographic Education. There he greeted an old friend, a female professor of photography who worked at a different institution, with a kiss on the cheek. Later that month, Fogel was at a photography conference in Houston where he participated in evaluating the portfolios of aspiring photographers. After reviewing one female photographer’s work, he offered to let her send him more, reached into his pocket for his business card, and accidentally pulled out his room key card. He recalled saying, “Here is my business card—oops, my room key,” put the key card away, and handed the photographer his business card.
An accusation followed.
Another terrible story:
In December 2017, Benny Fredriksson, then 58 and the head of a major Stockholm cultural center, became the subject of an investigation by a Swedish newspaper, which alleged that he harassed and mistreated women. He was specifically accused of trying to force a pregnant actress to get an abortion, and the Irish Times reports that a second newspaper called him a “little Hitler.” Fredriksson swiftly resigned, but the accusations continued on social media.
In March of last year, while accompanying his wife, the famed opera singer Anne Sofie von Otter, on a performing trip to Australia, Fredriksson took his own life. The backlash in Sweden against #MeToo was fierce. It turned out he had not tried to force an actress to get an abortion; it was later reported that he had expressed regret to an actress that she couldn’t appear in a stage production because she would have been eight months pregnant at the premiere. The Irish Times reports that “an official investigation dismissed the claims against him as unfounded” and that the Swedish newspaper was fined for printing unsubstantiated allegations. In an interview four months after her husband’s death, von Otter said he had resigned, even though the characterization of him was untrue, because he felt unable to defend himself. He fell into a deep depression as friends and colleagues abandoned him—out of fear, she said, that if they publicly defended him, they would be attacked themselves. She said she hopes a lesson of Fredriksson’s death is that “we’re not in the Middle Ages, we don’t pillory people, spit at them or stone them.”
Oh yes we are. And oh yes we do. As long as the “people” are men.
The Left isn’t just using “1984” as a how-to manual.
It’s also using “The Crucible”.
And it would appear that like suicide bombing, a weapon used originally to target opponents from the other side ultimately evolves into a weapon that is used against opponents on the same side—funny how that seems to happen—which should make the continuing train wreck of the Democratic presidential campaign fascinating to behold (in a gruesome kind of way).
Frightening! I count myself as fortunate to be long gone from my career as an airline pilot. Even in the 70s and 80s we were beginning to see women (flight attendants) who were becoming feminazis. I never was accused, but was called a few times as an eye witness to an incident where the woman complained about a word, a joke, a laugh, an “improper insinuation,” or other interactions that had “triggered” them. The incidents were rare at the time and I thought they were caused mostly by women with poor self esteem or daddy problems.. I had no idea such incidents would become so ubiquitous and damaging. How to stop such anti-social and damaging acts? I have no idea. Just glad I’m an old codger and don’t get out much anymore.
I hesitate (possibly owing to the hideous presence of the cult of #MeToo? [a jest, right?]) to make this comment, but what the heck: in the realm of the senses, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
So, as to the metaphorical invocation of The Erinyes in Aeschylus’ Oresteia, an alternative thought crept in, and a wonder suggested itself: “Might we not find a more fecund metaphor in Euripides’ Bacchae?”
Albeit, a Bacchae “In the best modern way”, (as Yeats put it) turned inside-out, upside-down, enantiomorphic, or mirror imaged, however the best descriptive case may be?
Here however is the true cause of my hesitance: I haven’t been able to work out the detailed correspondences, the proper mappings, though I believe they’re there. Braincramps or old age, I dunno. Or I’m just not poet enough.
Still, someone may be, I hope.
Haveatit. Gesundheit.
I regret to observe that Neo’s essay addresses the fact of many women’s episodic irrationality.
“Hysteria” has its root in the Latin word for uterus.
The valid point about the Furies, aside …
Nothing like being a dweeb and engaging in needy recreational sex with a woman you have no reason on earth to trust.
The #MeToo crowd is betting that not only does God not exist but that even if he does exist, he didn’t really mean it when “bearing false witness” was declared to be a major sin worthy of being included in the Ten Commandments.
Given eternity, that’s quite a bet. Can a soul that darkened face its own responsibility for what they’ve wrought? IMHO, perhaps more than anything else, redemption of the soul requires self honesty.
“For those with eyes to see”, there is a personal benefit to the #MeToo movement; it clarifies just how serious and potentially horrendous for the victim is that mortal sin.
It seems to me that social media has created an environment in which irrationality (on the part of men as well as women) flourishes. A woman who posts under the name “Helena” posted several articles about the noxious effects of Tumblr (and Twitter) on a blog (4th Wave Now) devoted to the emergence of rapid-onset gender dysphoria in girls. Although the blog as a whole focuses on transgenderism rather than #MeToo, Helena’s analysis of the dark side of social media made a lot of sense to me. Here is a link to her first post: https://4thwavenow.com/2019/03/20/tumblr-a-call-out-post/
My own impression is that the Internet as well as social media has fractured people’s ability to pay attention to a given subject for long periods of time, to reflect, and to analyze rigorously. Nicholas Carr, a freelance writer who has published several books on the effects of technology on culture, has recently posted on what he terms content collapse. Content collapse, as I define it, is the tendency of social media to blur traditional distinctions among once distinct types of information — distinctions of form, register, sense, and importance. As social media becomes the main conduit for information of all sorts — personal correspondence, news and opinion, entertainment, art, instruction, and on and on — it homogenizes that information as well as our responses to it.
The whole essay is worth reading: http://www.roughtype.com/?p=8724
This may seem like a long detour from the #MeToo Furies, but I think they are only one type of social mobbing and witch hunting. Ginned-up accusations (whether sexual, racial, or economic) amplified by social media are a game that any number can play.
I have no sympathy, naturally, for rapists and men who engage in serious sexual harassment of women and girls. But I also feel strongly that men are entitled to have actual evidence of real offenses brought against them in such cases, not just hysterical feelings and allegations.
I always told my two daughters that if they were actually raped or assaulted, they should call the police; and that they should be careful about where they go, with whom, and how much they drink, in order to avoid situations which might put them at risk. Fortunately, neither ever ran into trouble. Nor have they ever made false accusations against any man.
I usually have zero interest in Hollywood gossip, but supposedly the hostile divorce of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard some years ago, is now causing some implosion of the MeToo movement in Hollywood.
Apparently, many audio recordings of the couple’s arguments were made, and suggest that Heard frequently struck Depp with thrown objects, and slapped and smacked him, then claimed that only if she punched him with a closed fist would it constitute assault. She also ridiculed him saying that no one would believe him if he claimed a much smaller woman was abusing him.
All this is happening a long time after his career was seriously damaged.
Just one example article here.
Maybe we need to go back to having chaperones for any male/female social interaction outside of marriage…! No chaperone, no claim of rape possible. Once married (or even before ) Mike Pence rules should be followed.
Think those women would go for that?
Starting to sound like MRA
this open box has no hope in its bottom…
check out the red pill…
“Think those women would go for that?”
I think that has already been answered. Shortly after Pence made his policy known, and some men in business saw the wisdom and practiced same, many women began complaining that this idea was shutting them out of opportunities to learn from male co-workers or get get higher-ups to mentor them. They no longer got one-on-one working lunches or dinners as male executives took defensive measures. As a group the women appear to have fouled their own nest.
” be an adult and take responsibility for yourself. And that includes your own inebriation.” – Neo
Leaving aside the actual predators who have justly been outed by the earlier proponents of #MeToo,* a lot of the stories being publicized involve excess consumption of alcohol.
Who was that writer (female IIRC) who was criticized for suggesting that women just not get drunk and shack up with the guys, and they wouldn’t have this kind of problem? It’s been a while, back at the beginning of the #MeToo frenzy, and this formerly unexceptional and practical advice was greeted with hysterical (heh) cries of oppression and misogyny.
One of my good friends in college (1970s) told me that her father deliberately taught her how to drink responsibly for that very reason, and she would always take her liquor neat, as he advised her that mixed drinks made it hard to judge the alcohol content reliably.
Coincidentally, perhaps, one of the plays I directed in college was The Bacchae.
The connection sdferr is looking for could be in the nature of the frenzy that caused the women who were worshiping Dionysus to tear people and animals to fragments, including their leader’s son.
A wine-making god inducing a frenzy sounds very much like being drunk.
*Another article cited by Neo in her linked post.
https://quillette.com/2018/11/06/how-the-metoo-movement-helped-create-a-script-for-false-accusers/
Opera superstar Vittorio Grigolo was fired by both the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera because during curtain calls he jokingly rubbed the foam rubber fake pregnant belly of a female cast member. He did make things worse by losing his temper and getting into some kind of quarrel when confronted, but I suspect it was the “groping” that got him in trouble, even though it was obviously a harmless prank done in full view of the audience and the cast. I’ve seen him perform. He’s a showboat and he always goofs around during the curtain calls, but it was always harmless fun. Destroying his career at age 42 is a ridiculous overreaction.
Question: will this lead to more responsible sex among college students and fewer MeToo claims, or set up more conflicting stories about who did what where when and how?
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=14382
“U of Utah sends free, made to order ‘Pleasure Packs’ to students’ dorms”
There have thousands of years of mostly male abuse of their partners, including many homosexual cases (the Olympic diver…).
There is a socially destructive acceptance of promiscuity, including my own prior mistakes of “responsible promiscuity”. For most women, having multiple sexual partners is less optimal for a happy life than having one life-long partner with whom one is married.
“Immorality” is, in most cases, a pre-social sciences form of “sub-optimal”.
What is optimal for society? (and how is it measured??)
Men should stop shacking up with women they don’t love, even those who agree to have sex, drunk or not.
Women should stop getting drunk in order to enjoy sexual tension and, frequently, intercourse with men who don’t love them.
The #MeToo movement is pushing more men to have less sex, and pushing men to much less often ask/ push to have sex at all. (Especially with women?)
These many false accusations are accompanied by many true accusations, and in most he said/she said instances, the truth of the actions is hard to know, but the truth of the feelings is unknowable.
The putting of feelings truth above actions truth is terrible. The reduction of men hooking up with women mostly for sex is not so bad.
The Church of England, Anglican but not Episcopalian, has recently re-affirmed it’s long teaching that sex is for male-female marriages only.
https://www.christiantoday.com/article/sex-is-for-male-female-marriage-only-church-of-england-confirms/134075.htm
Some part of the response to #MeToo will be more folks agreeing with this, tho I don’t see the OECD legal structures going back towards this optimal ideal in my life. But “responsible promiscuity”, as an “ideal in practice”, is a major target of the #MeToo movement, false accusations and all.
I was a Never Trumper. The Kavanaugh hysteria turned me into a Trump voter. Way to go, scary ladies.
In part there is that, AesopFan, the frenzied worshipers annihilating the unbelievers (Pentheus, Agave, et al).
Dionysus is god. A “new” god, in need of defense, or “argument”. But an “old” god, by his own measure, for he “returns”.
His Maenads are our #MeToo cultists. Our cultists worship a “new” god(ess), here unnamed, though momentarily located in the linked Reason article as a sticker on the computer of one of Kaiman’s inquisitors: “The Future is Female”.
A burning bush! She is who she is (mixing metaphors and so to speak). Acknowledge Her, or perish.
Our frenzied cultists — the #MeToos — are drunken alright, drunken on power. Our Pentheus is here the bewildered rando male who falls unknowing into their clutches, to meet his dismemberment.
Paglia ought to be able to have a field day with this stuff, I’d reckon. But better her than me.
In some other, possibly quieter sense, it seems we have here a mere reemergence of an ineradicable paganism, a paganism long thought gone extinct, due to the beneficent ministrations of universalist Christianity.
Not so fast, eh? Stubborn human nature sticks around.
OK, you’ve MADE me do this….
“…hearing about that gives me the willies!”
“Hell hath no Furie, like a woman scorned”
How nice that what was once known as “The Walk of Shame” , now has a “recovered memories” Title IX option for “buyers remorse” in restoring one’s contractual virginity.
Amy @ 9:01a.m.
Thank You!!! Really. Seriously!!
I pass along a link to Roger Kimball writing in American Greatness blog (? adapted from an earlier given speech at the University of Arizona) on matters relevant here: Wokeness, Free Speech, and the Role of Education
A tiny snippet:
** The intoxication that follows from moral certitude is one important reason that the modern academy is increasingly inimical to free speech and everything that surrounds the cultivation of free speech: free inquiry, free action, and free minds. **
And a longer:
** In my book Tenured Radicals, I included a section on “academia and infantilization.” But when I wrote in 2008, the rhetoric of “safe spaces,” “microaggressions” and “trigger warnings” had not yet blazed its destructive path through the hearts and minds of students. Women back then made a point of declaring their independence, their ability to stand on their own two feet and make decisions for themselves. They would have rejected with contemptuous ridicule the idea that a college dean or “diversity officer” should police or protect their sex lives.
Nowadays, of course, victimhood is a badge of election. I will not attempt to plumb the depressing reasons for this unlovely development other than to note that it represents another side of that infantilization I mentioned a moment ago.
The crybully, who has weaponized his coveted status as a victim, was first sighted in the mid-2000s. He has two calling cards, race and gender. By coincidence Lawrence Summers, then president of Harvard University, was involved in the evolution of both. **
“Who was that writer (female IIRC) who was criticized for suggesting that women just not get drunk and shack up with the guys, and they wouldn’t have this kind of problem?”
Probably Dr. Ruth Westheimer. IIRC she said she didn’t want to hear some coed claim she was raped after she got drunk, went home with some guy then got naked and went to bed with him.
Ray – Bingo!
This isn’t what I read at the time (that was reactions to her honesty), but RS seems to be the source.
https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-features/dr-ruth-interview-documentary-829825/
Even Duck-Duck-Go isn’t helping; this is all I could find on the backlash, but I know I didn’t read Huffpo at the time. Anyway, the point is, Dr. Ruth is correct about the decision point being BEFORE you get into bed together.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dr-ruth-sexual-consent_n_7499626
AesopFan: “U of Utah sends free, made to order ‘Pleasure Packs’ to students’ dorms”
My, how romantic. 🙁
I suppose you all saw the attack of the flip-side of the #MeToo furies — with tits! — against Bernie Sanders in Nevada?
“No support for diary industry!, Sen. From Vermont!”, they demand.
Oy. Poor Bernie doesn’t seem to have the capacity to defend himself from these angry women, nor will they stop I think, now they’ve had two such assaultive successes against him. He needs help — like strongmen on and astride the stages to take down the milchcows before they get to him.
Anyhow, on my knees hands clasped skyward: thank you Jesus for answering my prayers. And Jesus, keep ’em coming, please you.
Humanity hasn’t advanced much from the dark ages. The ego construct is still strong in the Veil of Maya.