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The Unexamined Brutality of the Male Libido
- Thread starter MikeMcMann
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Even post-Weinstein, we cannot outsource justice to a mob
The women who report to the media are implicitly asking the public to punish the alleged wrongdoers on their behalf
It is interesting — but no longer surprising — that victims would choose to go directly to the media with their accounts of sexual harassment: it’s darn effective for getting quick results. Yet, for this same reason, the public reporting process is also disconcerting...
The very public nature of sexual harassment reporting is both the best and worst thing about this seemingly bottomless debacle. To change anything, this endemic problem needed to be blown wide open. At the same time, public reporting is not an adequate response to the problem.
Before Weinstein, many men clearly assumed they could get away with predatory, lewd, disrespectful behaviour — particularly in their workplaces...
Widespread, public reporting of the kind we’re now seeing is necessary if men of this ilk are going to adjust their risk calculus. If individuals can no longer bank on a victim’s silence, at least some will refrain from chancing that inappropriate pass.
But the public “naming and shaming” ritual encouraged by this debacle is also unsatisfactory. In effect, the self-identified victims who go to the media are pursuing a form of vigilante justice. They want something — catharsis perhaps, or recognition, or retribution, or revenge — that they think the public can deliver. In a word, they want justice.
Now, these accusers may have any number of reasons for circumventing traditional legal channels. Perhaps they fear it, or can’t afford it, or don’t have faith that the legal system or their employers will deliver just results, or don’t think they have suffered wrongs that are recognized as such by the system. In some cases, a newspaper’s investigative team may have even solicited their stories (as seems to have occurred with at least parts of The New York Times’ Weinstein investigation). What is clear, though, is that the women who report to the media are implicitly asking the public to punish the alleged wrongdoers on their behalf — without any full airing of the facts.
The idea of justice by public mobbing has traditionally been anathema to a society like ours. Democratic countries are committed to delivering justice (or at least some semblance of it) through formal channels, which include checks and balances, protections for both sides, and all the rest.
...Indeed, the whole premise of the “believe victims” movement is that the public should simply take self-identified victims at their word. ...
...A number of the men who have recently been accused of misconduct have said they don’t recall the impugned incident, or don’t accept the accuser’s recounting of it. Is it really impossible to believe that there may be two sides to these stories?...
...But absent cases where someone accepts full responsibility for the wrongdoing of which they’ve been accused, we’d do well to maintain at least a kernel of skepticism about the claims of both accusers and accused persons. Certainly, Canadians should have learned that much when they saw many of the accusers’ claims against the CBC’s Jian Ghomeshi crumble under judicial scrutiny...
The pre-Weinstein world was obviously no Eden. There’s a reason victims have turned to the media to get their stories out. But the post-Weinstein world is also problematic. It risks replacing one form of injustice with another.
The women who report to the media are implicitly asking the public to punish the alleged wrongdoers on their behalf
It is interesting — but no longer surprising — that victims would choose to go directly to the media with their accounts of sexual harassment: it’s darn effective for getting quick results. Yet, for this same reason, the public reporting process is also disconcerting...
The very public nature of sexual harassment reporting is both the best and worst thing about this seemingly bottomless debacle. To change anything, this endemic problem needed to be blown wide open. At the same time, public reporting is not an adequate response to the problem.
Before Weinstein, many men clearly assumed they could get away with predatory, lewd, disrespectful behaviour — particularly in their workplaces...
Widespread, public reporting of the kind we’re now seeing is necessary if men of this ilk are going to adjust their risk calculus. If individuals can no longer bank on a victim’s silence, at least some will refrain from chancing that inappropriate pass.
But the public “naming and shaming” ritual encouraged by this debacle is also unsatisfactory. In effect, the self-identified victims who go to the media are pursuing a form of vigilante justice. They want something — catharsis perhaps, or recognition, or retribution, or revenge — that they think the public can deliver. In a word, they want justice.
Now, these accusers may have any number of reasons for circumventing traditional legal channels. Perhaps they fear it, or can’t afford it, or don’t have faith that the legal system or their employers will deliver just results, or don’t think they have suffered wrongs that are recognized as such by the system. In some cases, a newspaper’s investigative team may have even solicited their stories (as seems to have occurred with at least parts of The New York Times’ Weinstein investigation). What is clear, though, is that the women who report to the media are implicitly asking the public to punish the alleged wrongdoers on their behalf — without any full airing of the facts.
The idea of justice by public mobbing has traditionally been anathema to a society like ours. Democratic countries are committed to delivering justice (or at least some semblance of it) through formal channels, which include checks and balances, protections for both sides, and all the rest.
...Indeed, the whole premise of the “believe victims” movement is that the public should simply take self-identified victims at their word. ...
...A number of the men who have recently been accused of misconduct have said they don’t recall the impugned incident, or don’t accept the accuser’s recounting of it. Is it really impossible to believe that there may be two sides to these stories?...
...But absent cases where someone accepts full responsibility for the wrongdoing of which they’ve been accused, we’d do well to maintain at least a kernel of skepticism about the claims of both accusers and accused persons. Certainly, Canadians should have learned that much when they saw many of the accusers’ claims against the CBC’s Jian Ghomeshi crumble under judicial scrutiny...
The pre-Weinstein world was obviously no Eden. There’s a reason victims have turned to the media to get their stories out. But the post-Weinstein world is also problematic. It risks replacing one form of injustice with another.
