#MeToo but not you. How a hash tag deepens the gender divide
The #MeToo campaign reveals not just how wide-spread and deep the problem of sexual assault is. It also shows fundamental flaws of a debate culture based on identity politics.
Any person with a grain of empathy in their bones must feel sympathetic about the hard-to-digest flow of personal stories of sexual assaults under the #MeToo hash tag. It helped victims to find the strength and courage to make their inner struggle a public one and to bring justice to a system which appears to shelter perpetrators through power. It allowed victims to build a network of solidarity and to shed light on crimes that otherwise might have stayed protected by power structures. How could anybody be against this? How would anyone not take part in this campaign? Needless to say, many did. Even those who were not themselves victims of sexual assaults expressed their solidarity, including men who often used the hashtag as a reflection of what they have done wrong in the past and could do to improve the situation in the future.
The moral dilemma of sexual assault
Sympathetic as one might be with #MeToo, it doesn´t need much fantasy to imagine another potential effect: The power of this hashtag might be abused as a tool of revenge and denunciation. As a piece in the New York Times put it:
In breaking the news about the allegations, The Times and The New Yorker carefully corroborated women’s stories. Social media has no such checks and balances.
Indeed, there is already a name and shame campaign on the way, circulated through a spreadsheet titled “SHITTY MEDIA MEN”, as NYT reports, referring to a BuzzFeed article. Another list targets South-Asian academics.
This shifts the focus on an old moral dilemma of sexual assault: In most cases, it happens behind closed doors without any reliable evidence. The legal system seems to work against the victim, as it follows the basic principle “innocent until proven guilty”. Many have criticized this logic as it leaves already traumatized people with the burden of proving their account in a painful and often humiliating process. Some want to meet this problem by turning the principle around, shifting the burden of proof to the accused. In either way, we end up in an ugly moral dilemma: Either we risk to let criminals go unpunished while making the victims go through the ordeal of a trial, or we risk to wrongfully convict innocent people.
Guilty by default?
As there is no good solution to this dilemma, the debate around it is heated and polarized. One side stresses how many cases do not come to justice because not enough proof can be provided or because they are not even reported. The other side refers to cases of wrongful accusations and convictions. Both operate with numerous statistics and individual examples to proof their point. But whether the legal system works in favor of the accused of not, he (mostly it is a he) will be always punished to a certain extent by carrying the stigma of being at least a potential perpetrator of an outrageous crime. This is particularly true when the accused is a celebrity which automatically moves the case into the spot light of intensive media coverage.
For example, Jörg Kachelmann was a popular weatherman on German television until a lover accused him of rape. He was arrested and spent 132 days in prison before he was discharged after a complex and controversial trial. Nevertheless, he lost his TV job, his advertising contracts were canceled and he was forced to sell his production company. No matter if he is actually guilty or not, it is obvious that he will carry the stigma of being a potential rapist for the rest of his life. In a way, he is guilty by default. Even when the accusing woman was convicted for false testimony, this had little impact for his reputation. His slate will never be clean again. If this doesn’t seem problematic to you, just think of the accusations against Julian Assange. I don’t know if he is guilty or not. But the case demonstrates that there is at least the possibility to use the rapist label to bring somebody down for political or other faulty reasons.
Between empowerment and mob justice
As empowering as the #MeToo campaign is for the victims, as frightening it is for anyone on the wrong side of the hashtag. So far it appears like the right people are targeted. The evidence against Weinstein seems overwhelming, and newly accused like Kevin Spacey have apologized for their wrongdoings. However, it would be dangerously naïve to simply celebrate this powerful new tool which effectively bypasses the law through social media. Sure, the accused will not be convicted before going through a proper trial. But does the legal outcome really matter if the practical outcome might destroy a person’s life as in the case of Kachelmann? Will the #MeToo crowd also defend those who turned out to be innocent? If not, their new tool of victim empowerment might mutate into a weapon of mob justice. As a consequence, it will lose its strength to work for its actual purpose. With every wrong accusation, it will weaken its capability to serve as a tool for bringing actual perpetrators to justice. We will see how wise the crowd really is.
The inflation of #MeToo
I can already anticipate the outrage of some people reading this. Isn’t it obvious that #MeToo is doing good, even if a few innocent might suffer? Isn’t it worth it, when we can bring those criminals to justice and make our society safer? This debate is not new and reflects decades of discussion of the moral dilemma outlined above. What is relatively new and increasingly powerful though, is the role of identity politics in this discourse.
It didn’t take long for the #MeToo hashtag to evolve into a marker of identity, dividing society into victims and perpetrators, women and men, oppressed and oppressors. In The Guardian Georgina Lawton asked to “challenge all men about sexual harassment”, pointing out: “It is not just glamorous women and Hollywood stars, it is your sister’s teenage mate, your co-worker, your best friend. It is happening every day and now.”
Mareike Nieberding explains for the German Zeit, why all men are affected by #MeToo:
Every debate about male sexual violence is a debate about power, power structures and the way we interact as a society, how we organize and shape this interaction, both in private and on an institutional level. That’s why you’re a predator, because you benefit from the system.
At the same time, she makes clear the female role: “And I’m a victim, even if I don’t want to be. Because I am systematically disadvantaged.”
#MeToo was not only extended to all men but also far beyond the initial issue of sexual assault. A number of authors told men how they should react to #MeToo. CNN commenter Nicole Stamp developed a long list of advice to “decent men”, including reading feminist literature, not calling colleagues or strangers “hon, baby, darling, girl, young lady or kiddo” and seeking for “enthusiastic consent” during sex. She also reminded men that positions in conversations on oppression should not be “attacked with nitpicky complaints or deluged with bad-faith questions” while they should “accept discomfort”, “apologize for mistakes” and be “willing to change”. The Feminist Current went a few steps further by asking men to stop consuming porn, donating “your pay gap money” and becoming “part of the clean up crew for a feminist event”.
#MeToo was no longer just a tool to expose sexual assault. It became a symbol for the old feminist fight against the “patriarchy”.
A divisive message
The message behind this dualistic approach is clear: Either you are with us, or you are part of the wrong side of #MeToo — which makes you at the very least a defender of sexual assault.
Men were supposed to subscribe to this logic by declaring #HowIWillChange. Those who did not do so and reminded the #MeToo activists that not all men are sexist predators were harshly silenced and told to quit their “mansplaining.” Another hash tag started rising, categorizing and mocking this #NotAllMen group.
There are several problems with this now widely observable strategy: Extending the core issue of #MeToo from sexual assault to the broad agenda of feminism inflates the original power of the hashtag. To some extent this even trivializes the very real issue of sexual assault, for example when Julian Dörr argued for the German Süddeutsche that there might be no more important issue than language for the current debate.
It creates a false and simplified dichotomy between the oppressed and the oppressors, the right and the wrong. In reality, the situation is far more complex. For example, Weinstein is known to have supported the feminist cause, e.g. by donating money to Democrats or championing actresses like Meryl Streep. The narrative of the oppressed versus the oppressors leaves no space for such contradiction. Instead it poses the threat to prematurely label his benefiters as part of the wrong side of the dichotomy. Alyssa Rosenberg noted in the Washington Post:
If letting Weinstein buy his way out of sexist pig status with political donations is setting the bar for feminism too low, asking Streep to be a time-traveling sexism avenger is a way to set the bar so high that no one can reach it.
Radically dichotomic thinking lowers the threshold to both camps, the oppressed and the oppressor. For many it even seems to be enough to be born with or without a penis to become a member of one of these camps. This does not help to combat sexual assault. What it does do is deepening the gender divide by sending a divisive message.
Let’s unite
Instead of ordering the world into black and white, let’s give each other the benefit of the doubt. The vast majority of us, including the men from the #NotAllMen camp, were appalled by the overwhelming amount and the seriousness of the #MeToo stories. Yes, acknowledge that the issue of sexual assault is real. But also recognize it is complicated and full of moral dilemmas which touch the basic foundations of our legal systems. Justice will not be achieved by prematurely dividing the world into the oppressed and the oppressors. Even if you believe in this divide, this does not necessarily help the people you are trying to help. Any wrongful accusation only trivializes actual crimes — and this goes for both sides: Perpetrators who claim their victims are lying are equally condemnable as those who accuse the innocent at the expense of the actual victims. Let’s unite and fight both of them while we do what we can to help those who really need it. #MeToo can be a powerful but also a destructive tool for this. Let’s use it wisely.
