When the Pendulum Swings Too Far

Let’s start off with breaking news: Time Magazine has announced its person of the year, or more accurately, people of the year.  The honor goes to “The Silence Breakers”, a group of women who have come forward to accuse powerful men of sexual harassment and/or assault since the publication of The New York Times expose detailing Hollywood movie producer Harvey Weinstein’s bad behavior two months ago. Men in nearly every industry have lost their jobs as a result of these allegations, from the titans of morning TV Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose to “House of Cards” leading man Kevin Spacey.  In many of these cases, the inappropriate behavior of these men was an “open secret.” For example, Katie Couric, who co-hosted “The Today Show” with Lauer for nine years, told Andy Cohen in a 2012 interview on his show “Watch What Happens Live” that “He pinches me on the a** a lot.”  Politicians on both sides of the political aisle have also had to grapple with these allegations.  Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), previously the longest serving member of the United States House of Representatives, announced his immediate resignation yesterday after facing a series of sexual misconduct allegations.  While many of these accusations go back decades, the women who have become part of the #MeToo movement that has sent shockwaves through Post-Weinstein America say that they remained silent for so long because they felt that speaking out would cause damage to their careers.     

 

 

As the allegations of sexual misconduct continued to pile on, many became concerned that the pendulum would swing too far.  It looks like that time has finally come.  In the Michigan Attorney General’s race, Democratic Candidate Dana Nessel aired an ad where she argued that voters should ask themselves “Who can you trust most not to show you their penis in a professional setting?  Is it the candidate who doesn’t have a penis?  I’d say so.” Hillary’s use of the gender card during her Presidential campaign looks mild by comparison.  As always, I find it quite strange that liberal women running for office like to emphasize their gender so much, particularly because the left has done everything they can to minimize and trivialize the biological and psychological differences that exist between men and women.

 

Nessel’s ad seemed to paint men with a broad brush, suggesting that all men are sexual deviants.  Had she painted any other group with such a broad brush, she would have faced massive pushback from the PC police.  Keep in mind that Nessel’s ad probably targeted her opponent in the Democratic primary, not any of her potential general election opponents on the other side of the aisle.  No matter which party ends up emerging victorious, Michigan will have a new Attorney General after next year’s election, as Bill Schuette, Michigan’s current Republican Attorney General, cannot run for re-election due to term limits.  Should Nessel win the election, she would almost certainly join the long list of Democratic Attorneys General suing the Trump Administration every step of the way.      

 

The sexual harassment scandals and the hysteria that has resulted from them could possibly lead to a breakdown of relations between the two sexes in the workplace.  Men may not even want to compliment their female colleagues anymore for fear of them taking it the wrong way and accusing them of sexual harassment.  While most women who come forward to accuse men of sexual misdeeds have done so honestly, many innocent men have seen their reputations destroyed because of false allegations of sexual misconduct, most notably in the Duke Lacrosse case, where Crystal Mangum, a student at Duke University who worked as a stripper, falsely accused members of the Duke Lacrosse team of raping her.  More than a decade later, the Ivy League school still has a stigma attached to it because of the false accusations.   Those who falsely accuse men of sexual misconduct do a great disservice to actual victims of sexual assault as they make the public at large more skeptical of their stories.  Feminists latch on to sexual assault allegations, even false ones, because they reinforce the idea that we live in a rape culture.  Feminists and Marxists want to rip apart western culture at the seams and promising to eliminate rape culture in addition to the “patriarchy” as a whole gives them the perfect cover.  False accusations of rape and sexual assault as well as the constant demonization of men by feminists led to the rise of the MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) movement, which argues that men should steer clear of romantic relationships with women.      

 

Since liberals love to justify bad behavior, as evidenced by the infamous “twinkie verdict”, you would think they would want to examine the root cause of predatory men in the workplace.  Fortunately for them, I know the answer.  I have a feeling the progressive gatekeepers in Hollywood probably will not like what I have come up with.  After years and years of producing entertainment that objectifies women, should it really come as a surprise when men in real life start treating women the same way the men on screen treat them?  It would certainly come as a welcome relief if men started to treat women like gold again but then the feminists would start complaining that men treat them as the weaker sex.  It’s no coincidence that the rise of sexual assault and harassment in the workplace comes at a time when religion continues to lose influence in everyday life.  When people feel that they do not have to answer to anyone but themselves, it gives them a sense of entitlement.  Feminists can blame toxic masculinity all they want but I think toxic secularism, which the mainstream media and the left rarely address, does a much better job of explaining the inexcusable behavior and cavalier attitude of sexual predators.

 

With groups like the ACLU and the Freedom From Religion working so hard in recent years to banish religion from the public square, toxic secularism may seem like a relatively new phenomenon.  However, it has plagued America for roughly half a century.   The mainstreaming of toxic secularism, as well as the objectification of women, first began during the sexual revolution of the 1960s when the popular culture began to reject the traditional values that Americans had adhered to for generations; especially by abandoning the nuclear family and encouraging single parenthood.  Feminists like to treat the era prior to the 1960s as the dark ages but as Ann Coulter pointed out, prior to 1968, “Women in America were treated better than any place else on Earth, at any time in history.”  They might not have had “Constitutional Rights” to birth control and abortion but they did not have to worry about sexual harassment at the workplace either, as the “Manson Family Values” that Coulter talked about in her article had yet to sweep the nation.  As powerful men have gotten away with sexual misdeeds for the past fifty years, it should not come as a surprise that the behavior continued well into the 21^st Century; where sexual misconduct has become more pervasive than ever before thanks to the technological revolution that has popularized “sexting”. 

 

While I sure hope the pendulum does not swing back to a point where actual sexual predators continue to prey on women at the workplace, I don’t want the pendulum to swing too far in the other direction either, to the point where women routinely throw false accusations of sexual assault at men as either a form of revenge or an effort to gain publicity.  I know I speak for many when I say that I hope we can find an acceptable middle ground.  Considering the polarization that has come to define our society in recent years, that task may be easier said than done.