Summary: The #meToo movement has swept like a wildfire through America. Now comes the response, inevitable but surprising to those who set the fires. Here are the first sightings. We can only guess at what comes next.
“Every revolution has its counterrevolution — that is a sign the revolution is for real. And every revolution must defend itself against this counterrevolution, or the revolution will fail.”
— Sociologist C. Wright Mills in Listen Yankee(1960).
(1960).
The counter-revolution begins, quietly
Articles about #meToo have a revolutionary aspect: they question a wide and growing range of interactions. How men look at women and talk to them. How people fall into dating, hugging, kissing, and so forth. But this movement is unlike previous civil rights movements. They sought equality. The goals and principles of #meToo are unclear — but go far beyond equality.
Now Americans are responding to #meToo, both as individuals and institutions. Steve Hendrix et al. at the WaPo describe hopes for a new era of some kind — with rules and behaviors yet to be defined. They also describe the defensive behaviors being taken now (until the golden age arrives).
“What’s happening is good, but it is having a chilling effect on camaraderie. I think this is going to be the new normal.”
— Joyce Thomas-Villaronga, president of the United Auto Workers chapter in Sacramento, CA.
There are many stories like that, and more every week. See these from “Lunches, hugs, and break-room banter: Where are the new boundaries at work?” in the Washington Post.
“A lobbyist flies solo from Texas to Washington to press his case on the Hill, leaving behind the female associate who did much of the work on the issue. He recognizes that his decision to fly alone is a lost opportunity for his talented young co-worker, but right now, with everything that’s going on, he is not willing to risk a business trip alone with a woman — even if what he sees as caution strikes many women as discrimination.
“As a wave of sexual misconduct allegations against prominent men crested in recent months, relationships between men and women in workplaces across the country have shifted — sometimes toward more honest discussions of what’s not okay at work, but also toward silence and exclusion, a quiet backlash against the righteous pride of the #MeToo movement. …
“In Silicon Valley, the chief executive of a midsize company asked his human resources manager what he should do about the undercurrent of tension around issues of sexual misconduct. Stop having dinners with female employees, he was advised. In fact, stop having dinners with any employees. Lunches are okay, dinners no way, HR told him.
“Another investor said his colleagues have canceled their one-on-one meetings with female entrepreneurs. And some men have taken to comparing their own new approach to that of Vice President Pence, who has said that he does not dine alone with any woman but his wife. …
“But the #MeToo movement will fail if it focuses on ‘legalistic solutions rather than practical ones,’ said Johnny C. Taylor Jr., president of the Society for Human Resource Management, which has 285,000 members in the HR field. In recent weeks, Taylor said, chief executives of ‘several major companies have told us they are now limiting travel between the genders,’ telling men, for example, that they may no longer take female colleagues on business trips or share rental cars with women. …
“In discussions across the country, Taylor, the HR executive, said he found that ‘every man I’ve spoken to is afraid. They really don’t know what to do. I read a list of things millennial women don’t want to see anymore, like opening doors for them or pulling out chairs. So if a group of us go out, how do I know if this woman likes the chivalry of opening a door and this other woman doesn’t?’
“Tracy Wilson sees the caution and confusion every day as general manager of the Red Velvet and Bakers & Baristas bakeries in the District. ‘A lot of males are definitely feeling more self-conscious, acting more guarded,’ she said. ‘It’s a shift. The critical mass has been reached.’ …
“‘My research over the past couple of years showed that men were hesitant to have one-on-one meetings, go out to lunch or go on business trips alone with a woman,’ said Kim Elsesser, a psychologist at the University of California at Los Angeles and author of Sex and the Office
But fraternization rules and mandatory training don’t seem to improve the culture of workplaces, Elsesser said. ‘There’s really no evidence that we’re doing anything that’s helping at all,’ the psychologist said. She is seeing a backlash against #MeToo in the form of a ‘sex partition,’ an invisible divider as men back away from interacting with women, inhibiting mentor relationships and clogging paths to advancement. Elsesser remains hopeful that the current debate can morph into a national discussion about consent: ‘We have to come up with a way to teach people how to know when it’s okay to move in for the kiss.’ …”
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Reports from Tallahassee, Florida
Mary Ellen Klass writes with a feminist spin in the Miami Herald about reactions in Florida’s capital. Women were the victims in the past, and change will make women the victims in the future.
“Women in politics fear #MeToo moment will backfire —
and they’ll be the ones punished.“
“I’ve walked around the building and you can look in women’s eyes and you just know they’re in pain. They’re terrified.”
— Lauren Book, Florida State Senator and Senate Democratic leader pro tempore (see Wikipedia).
“{A freshmen male legislator said he wanted} “to sleep with as many women as possible. Who is investigating that?”
— Florida State Senator Debbie Mayfield (see Wikipedia). Klass describes her as “tall, blond and attractive.” She thinks promiscuity is a crime.
As Florida’s politically powerful men fear becoming targets of sexual harassment allegations, the new-found awareness of a male-dominated Legislature has come with a cost: Women are collateral damage.
Female staffers and lobbyists who returned to the Capitol last week for pre-session meetings discovered many male legislators will no longer meet with them privately. Accustomed to Tallahassee’s Southern culture, where men and women casually and routinely greet each other with hugs, legislators are doing an awkward dance to replace a hug with a handshake. And the fear of retaliation — against women who brought forward allegations or those who may in the future — is as raw as the fear that legislators’ political enemies could turn sexual harassment claims into new political weapons.
“I had a senator say, ‘I need my aide here in the room because I need a chaperone,’ ” said Jennifer Green, a veteran lobbyist, after meeting with a senator in his Capitol office to discuss a client’s issue. “I said, ‘Senator, why do you need a chaperone? I don’t feel uncomfortable around you, do you feel uncomfortable around me? ‘Well,’ he said, ‘anyone can say anything with the door shut.’ ” …
{Jennifer Green, a veteran lobbyist} agreed that the culture has to change in order for women to be treated equally. “If you want to fix all this, ban legislators from raising money from lobbyists,” she said. …“It’s about the environment. Make an environment that does not allow drinking in the Capitol, don’t have committees meet after a certain time, and don’t allow fundraising in Tallahassee.” …
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3x as many male managers are now uncomfortable mentoring women in the wake of #MeToo. This is a huge step in the wrong direction. We need more men to #MentorHer. https://t.co/RyPo0PBz7N
— Arianna Huffington (@ariannahuff) February 6, 2018
Corporations police romance
People laughed as universities began to regulate romance. They required and defined “consent”, and created tribunals to resolve disputes and punish violators. Contracts and record-keeping systems evolved. Now mega-corporations begin the next phase of regulating their workers’ lives, as if they were wayward children. Expect them to more and more “lines in the sand” of our lives.
“Can You Still Date a Co-Worker? Well, It’s Complicated.“
By Yoree Koh and Rachel Feintzeig at the Wall Street Journal.
“Some employers are starting to review their rules and are now ‘drawing a hard line in the sand.’”
“…One rule at Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google: Employees are only allowed to ask a co-worker out once. If they are turned down, they don’t get to ask again. Ambiguous answers such as ‘I’m busy’ or ‘I can’t that night,’ count as a ‘no,’ said Heidi Swartz, Facebook’s global head of employment law. …Jacqueline Breslin, director of human capital services at HR outsourcing firm TriNet, said that toward the end of 2017 she started receiving a flurry of questions about so-called love contracts — in which a couple agrees to behave professionally at work and acknowledges they weren’t coerced into the relationship. …”
The Big Winner from #meToo
Vice President Mike Pence is the natural heir to Trump. He has experience: six-term congressman and one term governor of Indiana. He young (58) compared to the elderly tag-team of Clinton-Sanders-Trump. He is a competent, and hard-working far-right politician (see his Wikipedia entry).
But history might see his creation of the Pence Rule as his break-out event. “In 2002 Mike Pence told The Hill that he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife and that he won’t attend events featuring alcohol without her by his side.” {Source: WaPo.} Karl Popper said that successful predictions are the gold standard of science. Pence might prove that true of politics as well, if millions of men take his advice in response to the #MeToo hysteria
The Democrats can barely cope with Clown Trump. A President Pence will crush them. If Pence has a strong economy in 2020, he probably will lead the GOP to a decisive win.
The Democrats are having fun with their successful social revolutions and their Trump resistance, but the long-term price might be even further loss of political influence.
For More Information
Hat tip on the Huffington tweet to Dalrock, from this typically insightful post: Sisters aren’t about to do it for themselves.
Ideas! For shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about society and gender issues, about feminism, about sexual assault, about rape, and especially these…
- The unexpected response to the sexual harassment crisis.
- Weaponizing claims of sexual harassment for political gain.
- Worrying while the harassment fires burn out of control.
- Second thoughts about romance in the #MeToo age.
- The amazing numbers behind the #MeToo movement!
- News from the front lines as the meToo madness spreads.
- Look beyond the stories to see how we define harassment.
- Important: The end to World War G (gender).
A counterpoint to the Feminist Revolution.
Well worth reading: Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women
“Philosophy professor Christina Sommers has exposed a disturbing development: how a group of zealots, claiming to speak for all women, are promoting a dangerous new agenda that threatens our most cherished ideals and sets women against men in all spheres of life. In case after case, Sommers shows how these extremists have propped up their arguments with highly questionable but well-funded research, presenting inflammatory and often inaccurate information and stifling any semblance of free and open scrutiny.
“Trumpeted as orthodoxy, the resulting ‘findings’ on everything from rape to domestic abuse to economic bias to the supposed crisis in girls’ self-esteem perpetuate a view of women as victims of the ‘patriarchy’.
“Moreover, these arguments and the supposed facts on which they are based have had enormous influence beyond the academy, where they have shaken the foundations of our educational, scientific, and legal institutions and have fostered resentment and alienation in our private lives. Despite its current dominance, Sommers maintains, such a breed of feminism is at odds with the real aspirations and values of most American women and undermines the cause of true equality. Who Stole Feminism? is a call to arms that will enrage or inspire, but cannot be ignored.”
I heard on a podcast me2 is spreading rapidly throughout egalitarian Scandinavia. LOL
I wonder if Islam came from a me2 in the late roman, early Christian world.
Something mostly missing from all this discussion is that what seems fine now can quickly be flipped. Smart men are going to avoid the dangerous risks as more and more realize them, much to the detriment of society.
We will reap the whirlwind.
Billy,
(1) “that what seems fine now can quickly be flipped”
I leave long-term predictions to other, bolder people. That is, as they say, over my pay grade. Understanding what’s happening now — and guessing about tomorrow — is all I can do.
(2) “We will reap the whirlwind.”
Iagree! That is the point of this post: “there is always a counter-revolution.” It’s too soon, however, for confident predictions about outcomes.
For more about this see Women, society, & the gender wars, section Four: First signs appear of the counter-revolution.
I came here from Dalrock and I’m liking this site a lot.
If the old fable about the boy who cried wolf were written by a feminist, then the moral of the story would be to believe the victim, no matter what. If the townsfolk would have just believed the boy, then his death would have been averted.
If modern western women had an iota of integrity amoung them they would go after the attention whoring liars within their ranks to boost the credibility of their movement. But instead, they double down on their man hating shenanigans. Not only must men be completely vulnerable to women’s often baseless accusations, but any attempt at prophylactic defence (like the pence rule) is met with stern condemnation from women.
Even if women end up as losers thanks to #metoo, very few have the ability to emerge from their own solipsism to connect cause and effect.
Dota,
Your comment raises many interesting points, but I’ll mention just one. To what extent is the gender revolution being driven by “women” — or is it a small segment of women.
Revolutions are usually driven — at least in the early stages — by a minority. The key point seems to come when very roughly a quarter or third of the relevant population becomes supporters. That’s what made the American revolution possible. Note that roughly a third were Loyalists — but the revolutionaries outplayed them.
A plague on both their houses. They will all die out, as will the demented culture that spawned them. Too bad it includes us.
Calvin understood that sex was a commitment to the future generations, which is why he was fanatic about making marriages public. Once things are on the record, people have to live accordingly. The challenge is that kids take two decades to raise properly, with effort. Feral kids take less than half that time and are a lot easier to produce. Calvin was seeking the former, not the latter. Seems his insights have been lost, to the detriment of the body politic.
etudiant,
“Too bad it includes us.”
As citizens we are the crew of America, not its passengers. Condemning the service like dilettantes slumming at 2 star restaurant isn’t what the Founders hoped for from us.
If what you are saying is accurate (i dont know anything about calvin), then he overdid it. Or at least, what he did was appropriate for the issues of his time, but not appropriate now.
The same rules that work in a resource constricted environment, are nit goign to work in a resource rich environment. For example, there are always going to be a cadre of high testosterone men that need multiple partners, and the majority of women are perfectly OK with sharing such men.
Unfortunately, no legitimate mechanism exists to socialize such drives, and where a human drive is simply declared verbotem it will express itself illegitimately. For the classic example, one can look at the disastrous attempt to ban alcohol on the US. Something which not only failed utterly, but whose implementation led to numerous social nightmares that we are still dealing with today.
You can and indeed must legislate morality. But you cannot and never will be able to engineer the human condition in the same way one builds a house. Living things can be forced into a shape that fits into such calculations, but the costs are far worse and longer reaching than anyone can forsee. A good book to read on this subject woukd be “the omnivores dilemma” which discusses, anecdotally, the problems of our modern system for raising food.
This is no ‘revolution’; it is merely an extension of the existing power structure.
Its just the latest iteration of the imperative of feminine supremacy further bifurcating the men (males) who are not attractive enough by subjecting them to the humuliation of absurd, paradoxical, and dehumanizing rules to get at the ever-shrinking elite of alpha men (who make the rules). Its sexual anarcho-tyranny.
The latest metoo weapon is a doubling-down on the emancipation of women from the poor outcomes of their choices.
The problem (the counter revolution) as in most cases where there isnt enough organic fuel for the furnace of subjugation, is that those under the threatpoint tend to take the one with the whip at thier word. Thus, you want equal? Ill treat you like the other stuffed suits in the cube farm.
But that wasnt good enough. Because that actually blunts the power of the poosy, which they deaire to retain. Not just retain, but amplify under the guise of imherent weakness and vulnerability that needs special consideration. The modern strong independent woman wants both protection from sexual advances from unattractive and/or low-status men and the ability to extravct favors/resources from those same men based on the feigned potential of sexual opportunity at her whim. And by unattractive low status men i mean most men in their eyes.
Women are the sole arbiters of victimhood and since they insist on being both empowered by their sexuality (pussy hats and slutwalks and sexpozzie hookup culture) and victims of its intrinsic weakness (rape culture and metoo), men shy away from them just as they would in the case of most schizophrenics having an “episode”.
Indifference toward women from men is the real toxic masculinity.
Cleavage and power point? Thats lean-in go-girl 101. But male gaze upon that cleavage? Thats metoo.
The notion of equality which is the inflamed strawman behind these maneuvers is subjexct to the contextual, situational, and subjective parameters of those who view everything through the victim-oppressor lens. In other words, its a post-facto indictment mechanism should future outcomes prove unsatisfactory.
Needless to say (bit i will) is that in the absurd world of fried-ice that these women imagine to be ideal, there is a metric ton of poor outcomes. So? Double down again!
They have jumped the shark, however, becauase their other femprogressive primacy psyops have out-kicked their coverage; the currency of virtue-signaling is worth more than actual accomplishment. Plus its free for the taking. And they love taking.
So women scramble to invoke their metoo power because the hierarchy favors victimhood over silly things like competency and skill.
The loudest voices are likely those whose best days are in the rearview just like the loudest most bitter and angry women leading any cause of the week are most likely the ones that failed to consolidate their (true) power of femininity and reproduction during their 20 year reign at the relative apex of the sexual market.
These trends are why im long on cat litter, boxed wine, and SSRI’s.
The unforseen consequences of unrestrained feminine superiority will continue to cascade until the entirety of the female experience is as twisted, self-indulgent, and anti-civilizational as facebook.
We are live-streaming the slow dancing of the Tinder-Instagram generation while the house burns down.
Tl:dr. Soft men make for hard times.
Nice blog. Thanks for your work.
Any woman that does not wish to have males gazing at her body is welcome to wear modest clothing that doesnt emphasize her udders. The reason she complains is not because she is feeling dehumanized, but because she is feeling dehumanized by THE WRONG MEN.
This is the problem inherent in letting the little dears act like a pack of rabid narcissists without social consequence for their sexual behavior. We all assumed that if we allowed them to use their sex appeal to gain male attention, then we would be living in a paradise of lauhing naked women happiky cavorting on the grass. What we morons did not understand was that everyone, and I mean everyone, does things for a reason.
In their case, displaying their bodies is a way of demonstrating their fertility which will garner male attention and favor. That attention is a form of power which consequently gives them more say on the pecking order of the rest of the hens. Ie, a woman who is extremely fertile, is extremely attractive to virile males and will be given attention and investment by those virile males. By them, and by the families of those males who wish to see their sons and brothers reproduce with a genetically and emotionally healthy mate. Which also means that she has influence over those males, and the people who care about them, which means that she is a person of consequence even among the rest of the hens.
Removing the social constraints on womens sexuality and display of same, was the equivalent of removing legal consequences for the bad behavior of financial institutions. A company which can falsify its records and lie without consequence to potential investors, will be able to outcompete its more hinest competitors, forcing the competition to use dishonest business practices as well or go under.
Similarly, a moderately attractive woman can make herself more appealing to a high quality alpha male if she signals that she is an easy lay. Tattoos, piercings, body fat, revealing clothing or even lack of clothing altogether, all these things are tells saying “ready to go and no investment”. Now your average imbecile thinks this means hes getting laid quick, and then hes surprised when not only does she reject him but she accuses said imbecile of rape for simply talking to her. This is because shes not walkng around butt naked to get inseminated by a moron, shes walking around butt naked to get inseminated by a high quality alpha. And since we are talking about biological behavior, that means what a chimpanzee female would consider “alpha”, not what a male consoders alpha fromthe perspective of civilization.
That is, Charlie Manson as opposed to Brad Pitt.
Ron,
“Any woman that does not wish to have males gazing at her body is welcome to wear modest clothing….”
I’ve wondered about that, too. We are told what to say. What to do. What we’re allowed to watch and hear. How to talk to people — what are the approved words. Now we’re being told how to look. Thoughtcrime next?
A large portion of people met their spouse at work expect marriage rate decline to accelerate to its nadir.
Larry: “To what extent is the gender revolution being driven by “women” — or is it a small segment of women.”
I see where you’re going with this and I must disagree. While it’s true that feminism is first and foremost an elite project that serves elitist ends (depressing wages, broadening the tax base etc) the average woman enjoys the spillover benefits and there lies feminism’s appeal. Most women, even those that eschew the feminist label, are not going to surrender the freebies of no fault divorce, affirmative action, alimony, child support etc…
Feminism is the female id politicized. It allows women to act on the dictates of their most base and feral instincts while abdicating personal responsibility. The sexual harassment hysteria compels low status men to select themselves out while making them available only when women have a use for them.
Dota,
Nicely said. All valid points.
Bravo. Comment of the thread.
“As citizens we are the crew of America, not its passengers. Condemning the service like dilettantes slumming at 2 star restaurant isn’t what the Founders hoped for from us.”
Quite true, the personal responsibility still remains with us as individuals. However, the willingness of the legal system to stretch its reach to monitor every aspect of human behavior is gradually abrogating these norms.
We are much less free than our parents and the trend is deeply adverse. To illustrate: Eisenhower’s comment when asked about abortion was that he could not imagine a subject less appropriate for federal intervention than this deeply personal issue. That was before the courts became more activist.
I’ve no bright ideas how to reverse these trends. Voltaire’s counsel: ‘Il faut cultiver son jardin’ is useful for the individual, but does not help the adverse processes under way.
etudiant,
“However, the willingness of the legal system to stretch its reach to monitor every aspect of human behavior is gradually abrogating these norms.”
That is missing the point. Elections are held every two years. The system is under our control. The machinery the Founders bequeathed us remains potentially decisive, but requires our work to set it in motion. Not just voting (which too few Americans do) but involvement in grass-roots politics. That was the point of my restaurant analogy. We’re not customers, tasting the food to see it its worthy of our awesomeness.
If we sit on our butts and whine, we deserve what we get. That’s the lesson of Disney about the Great Circle of Life.
As for what to do, here are 60 suggestions (I’m confident you have ideas as good or better): Reforming America: steps to new politics.
@Larry Kummer
The link is bad, or at least it doesnt show up in safari. Tried doing a google search on the title but got too mich noise to be sure if any entry is thr one you refer to. Please repost the link.
ROn,
Thantks for catching that. Fixed!
To be expected. As someone once said, for every action there’s a reaction.
Indeed the modern day American HR department is now on full red alert regarding increased litigation climate and risk in the US, Canada, Europe and ANZ regions.
Male managers and employees are wisely considering withdrawal from:
1. assisting and collaborating with female colleagues unless absolutely necessary,
2. mentoring ANY female colleagues,
2. scheduling or attending ANY closed door meetings, dinner meetings, after work happy hour meetups, work-related or networking parties.
3. traveling with female colleagues (airplane seating, rental cars, hotels) due to risks.
There is a bright side to this pervasive attitudinal shift.
Work productivity and the quiet preferred hiring of men are both likely to increase significantly in the coming years.
Constrained Locus,
“Work productivity and the quiet preferred hiring of men are both likely to increase significantly in the coming years.”
Productivity: Now that is an interesting idea — desexualizing the workplace, taking us back towards the 19th world — might increase productivity. It might even offset some of the productivity lost from workers surfing the internet and social media.
Hiring: I very much doubt if women-dominated HR departments will become tilted towards men. Not now, not in any foreseeable future.
I don’t disagree necessarily on the hiring question.
However, the current trend is for more companies, large and small, to outsource HR functions entirely (namely recruitment, payroll, benefits, compliance and risk management, relocation, workers’ compensation, unemployment compensation, drug-free workplace and safety programs) to 3rd parties in order to achieve business unit cost savings and improve deployment of capital. Returns for doing so are significant. Some functions may be kept in-house, but the staffing, power and influence of traditional HR departments is actually diminishing.
This means the feminists and gender activists are being shifted off-premises, now with more than an arm’s length to those on the org chart and a reduced level of influence and skin-in the-game to steer certain hiring outcomes. While diversity quota policies and affirmative action remain forever in place, their active enforcement and administrative accountability may not be as ardent as what we’ve come to experience and observe from the traditional, on-premises HR functionaries of the past.
Constrined,
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. New companies here — and this is one of America’s core creators of new corps — have hiring run by HR, and the the chief oF HR is a senior officer (since this is almost always a women, it gets them points on the equal opportunity scorecard). They often use recruiters, but that does not reduce their control of the process.
Nobody is hiring fewer women. The pressure for “diversity” is too great.
‘Now it’s gotten worse. We need to educate everyone in the workplace not only about what not to do, but that going out to lunch is important — if you segregate by gender, that’s discrimination.’
Great, you completely missed the point. Instead of thinking that perhaps listen and believe may have been going a bit too far, completely undermining the foundation of western law, let’s double down. We screwed ourselves over with this shit, and now we need to beg men to come back to the table. If you want that you’re going to need to do a lot more than teach people that lunch is important then continue screaming “discrimination”. Now men quietly vote with their feet, wallets, and time saying that the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze. One word from a woman and your career is over, but it’s fine just suck it up and #MentorHer. It’s now been clearly proven that men and women are not equals, it’s time people started admitting it.
TL;DR You made your bed now get f’d in it.
Welcome to gynocentrism people, its always about the woman and never the man. Its amazing how females talking about the downside of #metoo is only about how it is affecting women in work places and dating etc..
No talk about how men risk going to prison, get fired and their reputation ruined just because we are supposed to believe every alleged victim.
No “anti-#metoo” female considers a more fairer punishment of same amount of jail years a man would have served if the accusation is wrong.
And then people wonder where good men went and why 70% of American males under 35 are not getting married/in a long term relationship.
But hey, guess we men have always been disposable.
This is why men are going MGTOW and the philosophy is growing.
Free yourselves brothers, free yourselves from the shackles and conditioning placed on you by a society that cares not of your soul but only as your utility to it.
But what do I know?