Sir Ian McKellen is "waiting" for #MeToo accusation against him - "Sir Ian McKellen says he is “waiting for someone to accuse” him of sexual misconduct in the wake of allegations against director Bryan Singer and actor Kevin Spacey... “Well frankly, I’m waiting for someone to accuse me of something, and me wondering whether they’re not telling the truth and me having forgotten.”"
School bans pupils from hugging or having relationships - "Pupils have been banned from having romantic relationships and hugging at a school in Essex as part of new rules to make them "focus on their learning". Hylands School in Chelmsford has said they "do not allow" romantic relationships between pupils and that physical contact could lead to "inappropriate" touching. Parents have been critical of the hands off policy but the school has said most parents and pupils are supportive and that it "engenders mutual respect and encourages pupils to behave professionally as any future employer would expect"... The letter sent by the school said that "any aggressive physical contact, hugging, holding hands, slapping someone, etc." would not be tolerated, adding, "this is in order to keep your child safe". "If your child is touching somebody else, whether they are consenting or not, anything could happen. It could lead to an injury, make someone feel very uncomfortable, or someone being touched inappropriately""
Don't mind the Hollywood age gap - "was the sight of an older man with a younger woman really such a problem? Laura Dern and Sam Neill seem to think so. Speaking ahead of the release of their new film, Jurassic World Dominion, the Hollywood stars recently reflected on their roles as a romantic couple in the original 1993 film, Jurassic Park, when Neill was 42 and Dern 23. Dern said that since then she had developed an ‘awareness of the patriarchy’, and that both her and Neill now realise that this age gap was ‘completely inappropriate’. Neill’s description of Dern being of a ‘tender age’ at 23 is amusing in itself. Thirteen is a tender age. At 23 Dern was an adult. Not only that, she had been acting since she was six, and already had two hugely successful David Lynch films under her belt by the time she appeared in Jurassic Park. So why are both actors suggesting that, at 23, Dern was too young to be involved – even just onscreen – with an older man? Are they suggesting it put her at risk? This seems unlikely. Neither had a bad experience working with the other, as the fact that both are now starring in the new Jurassic Park film together surely attests. So why do both feel the need to suggest that there was something sinister about their onscreen relationship from almost 30 years ago? This is a perfect example of post-#MeToo logic at work. Too often today, we are encouraged to reinterpret our perfectly innocent past experiences in the light of sexual abuse and an ‘awareness of the patriarchy’... The infantilisation of women is one of the worst consequences of the #MeToo panic. We are increasingly encouraged to see ourselves as children, always in need of help, even when we’re well into our adult years. It’s this logic that encourages alleged feminist campaigners to call for laws against wolf-whistling builders, or for policies in the workplace that protect women from sexist comments. If women want to be taken seriously, we must resist the urge to play the victim at every opportunity – especially when it comes to revisiting the past. Rather than viewing history and culture as one long tale of women’s victimisation and abuse, young women today should be inspired by the victories and achievements of women who lived and worked in times when it really was tricky to be a woman in a man’s world. If we start accepting that women in their twenties are still too vulnerable to face the world without protection, we might as well give up on the idea of women’s freedom altogether."
Time to "protect" young women by raising the age of consent, as well as stopping them from driving, working and signing legal contracts till they are older
Addendum: So much for "love is love is love"
Dame Joanna Lumley scoffs at ‘fashionable victimhood’ and says ‘women used to be tough’ - "Dame Joanna Lumley has claimed that victimhood is the “'new fashion” for women. Discussing the Me Too movement, the actress and presenter said that in her early days in the entertainment industry women took a “tough” approach to unwanted advances, but this has now changed. Dame Joanna has claimed that victimhood is now the “fashion” for modern women and branded it “pathetic”. She told Prospect magazine: “If someone whistled at you in the street, it didn't matter, if someone was groping, we slapped their hands. “We were quite tough and looked after ourselves… the new fashion is to be a victim, a victim of something. It's pathetic, we have gone mad.”... the 76-year-old star said that many people were “claiming the mental illness bandwagon” and that “the mental health thing is being overplayed”. She argued that what many people said were signs of mental illness were simply emotions which are part of “being human”. She also warned in a 2021 interview that gender parity in the entertainment industry may never happen, as women will always be pressured to be beautiful “because in the whole long time that human beings have been alive, women have always had to look good for men to like them”."
Internalised misogyny!
Female academics’ opportunities ‘cut by #MeToo’ | Times Higher Education (THE) - "The #MeToo movement has diminished female researchers’ careers by inhibiting collaborations at a crucial early stage... A study of female academics at 58 top US economic departments has found that their research productivity almost halved from 2018, after the #MeToo movement focused the world’s attention on sexual harassment in the workplace. The study says that collaborations between female and male researchers had declined sharply. Women had few female alternatives to turn to – unlike men, who simply switched to collaborating with other men. The negative effects were apparent in universities with higher numbers of sexual harassment cases and where harassment policies were “ambiguous”. In organisations with clear policies, the study found no significant decline in collaborations."
We keep getting told that if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. Clearly the only men who would be wary of ambiguous harassment policies are creeps
Columbia Settles a Complicated Sexual Assault Case - The New York Times - "It began as a night of drinking and flirtation between two Columbia University classmates four years ago. It turned into a federal lawsuit with unusually detailed documentation. And now it has ended in a settlement that underscores the contentiousness of the national debate over campus sexual misconduct cases, a debate that the incoming Biden administration is expected to join soon as it considers whether to overhaul federal sexual assault policies. Under the settlement filed on Dec. 23, Columbia has restored the diploma of Ben Feibleman, whom a three-member university panel had found responsible for sexually assaulting a female classmate. It has also agreed to pay him an undisclosed cash award and to send a statement to prospective employers describing him as an alumnus in good standing... The case is unusual because Mr. Feibleman willingly sued under his own name, rather than a pseudonym, and because he had made a 30-minute audiotape of the sexual encounter. That recording became a centerpiece of his defense... It paints a picture of a campus culture in which students have become hyper-aware of the rules of academic sexual misconduct and worry about how every intimate encounter is going to look down the road... More than 600 federal and state lawsuits have been filed by students accused of sexual misconduct since April 2011, when the Obama administration instituted its new policies"
Half of single men avoid approaching women for fear of seeming creepy - "this isn’t just bad for men, but also for women if “terrific single men won’t approach them out of fear of being perceived as creepy.”... women regularly experience creepy behaviors. 82 percent of women reported experiencing creepy behavior "sometimes," "often," or "constantly." Men avoid women out of fear of being creepy. 44 percent of men said the fear of being creepy “reduces their likelihood of interacting with women” generally, which jumps to 53 percent of men who reported that they are single. There are nine creepy behaviors Anderson found that men should avoid: staring, unwanted contact on social media, inappropriate comments, controlling behaviors, won’t accept "no," unwanted physical contact, pressure for sex, clinginess, and physical stalking... “Through coaching more than 1,000 men, I’ve learned that few guys can reliably predict which photos of themselves are, or aren’t, attractive”"
How #MeToo has RUINED dating by making men scared to approach women in real life, expert says - "A dating expert has claimed the #MeToo movement has made men across the world scared to approach women on the street for fear they'll come across as 'creepy' or be accused of harassment. Kezia Noble, 38, from Chelsea, south west London, an author who appeared as a coach on Celebs Go Dating in 2018, said many blokes have adopted dull 'nice guy' filters that actually repel women rather than attract them. The divorced mother-of-one, whose YouTube videos offering dating advice have received 75 million views, said while the empowering movement has served a 'very good purpose', she is concerned about its 'trickle effect' which has made men feel they can't talk to or interact with women in real life. Keziadded that most women she speaks to say they are fed up with 'woke' men being 'too nice and bumbling' and want a guy to take the bull by the horns and ask them out... 'I know when I talk to guys now and they approach me, I think, "Oh God this is like some weird filter you've got on because you're scared of #MeToo or something",' she said. 'It's a bit dull. It's watering the guy's traits down - his character, his boldness - to make him this nice, inoffensive, bland, forgettable "nice guy".' She argued that men can be 'alpha males' without being a 'b*****d' to women, adding: 'Treat 'em mean to keep them keen doesn't mean be abusive, it just means don't be so readily available. 'Show that you have other options, things like that - it's just game strategy which women play on men and men play on women. I just feel like that's getting a bit lost.'... She claims the #MeToo 'fear' has pushed men towards dating apps, which she argues don't work because people are judged purely on how they look in a picture - and often those photos are heavily edited and filtered. She added it's also meant many people now lack engaging conversation and flirting skills because they're so used to communicating via text messages. 'We're not talking to people one-on-one in real life, so our social skills are not in good shape,' she argued. 'A lot of women say, "This guy was so witty in his text messages but when I saw him he was a social freak and it was really awkward".' This is part of the reason she urges singletons to ditch dating apps - something she has never used herself. 'I know that with all my ex-boyfriends, if I'd seen them on a dating app I would never have never swiped right'... 'I always say think about what your three best-selling points are, think about what you've got going for you, and bring that to the forefront of a conversation. 'A lot of guys will say, "She has to get to know me", but no she doesn't, it's not that simple. 'You have to market yourself very quickly. Listen and don't come out with the same c*** everyone does. 'If she says, "I'm from Spain", rather than going "What part, how long have you been here for?" replace that generic with something like, "You know what I've never been there, tell me two things that make it an incredible place to visit"... 'I don't hear women complaining about men approaching them... If she's single and you're going there and having an authentic conversation with her, I think most women are going to be quite engaged with that.'"
Of course the feminists claim that approaching a woman is sexual harassment
#MeToo's Alyssa Milano called a hypocrite supporting Warnock - "Actress Alyssa Milano has been a vocal #MeToo advocate, but some are claiming that the Democratic activist's morals appear to waver when it comes to the Georgia Senate runoffs. During Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings in 2018, Milano was extremely critical of Kavanaugh, and welcomed all of the allegations against him without questioning them. She wore a sash with the words "BELIEVE WOMEN" on it during Kavanaugh's hearing. She also sat behind Kavanaugh and held up a booklet that read: "I BELIEVE SURVIVORS."... Milano is raising money for Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock, who was allegedly involved in a domestic dispute... "Do you see a hypocrite when you look in the mirror @Alyssa_Milano Asking for a friend #metoo #timesup." The reply included a Rose McGowan tweet, where the actress torched Milano and called her a "fraud" for her silence about the sexual accusations against Joe Biden by former Senate staffer Tara Reade."
Title IX: How Hundreds of Campus #MeToo Punishments Could Get Tossed - "Much like the Baylor case, the John Doe suing Michigan State claims the university used Title IX as a “weapon of law” in order to “distract attention from its own misdeeds” in the aftermath of the very public Larry Nassar scandal, in which the former USA Gymnastics team doctor and MSU physician was unmasked as a serial sexual abuser who victimized hundreds of women and girls. The Doe case against Michigan State claims the university failed to offer the accused student due process by prohibiting him from being present during a live hearing in which he could question his accuser directly... “I don’t see [the barrage of lawsuits] as a backlash to the #MeToo movement,” Hathaway said. “It’s a backlash to the if-you’re-accused-you’re-guilty movement.”... K.C. Johnson, a professor at Brooklyn College and expert on due process in college sexual-assault cases, told The Baltimore Sun that due-process lawsuits against colleges and universities have increased from about one per year from the mid-1990s to 2011 to about one a week over the past two years... “If you’re found responsible for sexual misconduct at a university in America, your future is arguably over,” said Rosenberg. “The lawsuit is the only way that these students are able to move on professionally and academically.”... Schools enforced Title IX with less rigor before 2011 because of the high standard of proof that was required in such proceedings. But during the Obama administration, federal guidance changed to a “preponderance of the evidence” standard for Title IX cases, meaning the accuser had only to show that the incident was more likely than not to have occurred. Critics of the Obama-era federal Title IX guidance, including Rosenberg, say those guidelines made it harder for students to defend themselves—and are responsible for the increase in litigation."
Devine: Katie Hill scandal exposed the left’s #Me Too hypocrisy - "Congresswoman Katie Hill’s sexual relationship with a much younger intern is a classic “MeToo” situation, and on Sunday, she belatedly realized the gravity of her offense and now plans to resign. But it shouldn’t have taken so long — more than a week during which she was aggressively buttressed by hypocritical defenders on the left. By claiming that Hill was the victim of a political smear, she and her supporters showed no concern for the vulnerable 22-year-old who was preyed upon by her boss and who now, two years later, is bereft, abandoned and a self-described “mess.” The same people who demonize males for far less gave Hill a free pass for her egregious abuse of power. The Guardian even helpfully has explained the ethical distinction between men and women committing the same offense: “When Hill engaged in an affair with a campaign aide, she did not do so in the context of millennia of men’s sexual violence against women.”... you can bet that if Hill, 32, were a man and, God forbid, a Republican, the “MeToo” crowd would show no mercy. No man could get away with describing a sexual relationship with a subordinate whose paycheck he controls as merely “inappropriate.” Hill, described by Elle magazine as “one of the most powerful” freshmen in Congress, and a protégé of her California stablemate Nancy Pelosi, wielded power every bit as potent as any man. What makes this situation worse is that she prevailed upon her susceptible young staffer Morgan Desjardins to enter an emotionally perilous “throuple” relationship, or sexual threesome, which included Hill’s husband, Kenny Heslep."
Basically feminists believe that men are evil, which is why they are fine with women victimising men
Facing House Ethics Investigation, California Rep. Katie Hill Resigns - "In one California Globe article revealing Katie Hill posing naked with a Nazi-era Iron Cross tattoo on her bikini line while smoking a bong and making out with her young female aide,” we found another photo of Hill holding a sign which said, “Stop Kavanaugh.” Hill was very vocal during the Kavanaugh hearings calling him a “predator.” She will be afforded due process, which she did not see fit to extend to Justice Kavanaugh – for whom the outrageous allegations proved false... As I reported last year when the California State Assembly investigated groping allegations by Daniel Fierro against Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens), there has been a deafening silence from the Legislature’s Women’s Caucus, and legislative leadership. However, they were vocal on the sexual harassment charges against their male colleagues... the same people in the media who wrote thousands of words demonizing males for for their sexual indiscretions with staffers, ignored the Katie Hill scandal, or gave her a free pass for her egregious abuse of power of a young staffer."
Swedish #MeToo activist told to pay damages to man she accused of rape - "A Swedish journalist has been ordered to pay thousands of kronor in damages to a man she claimed raped her, in a series of social media posts that got the #MeToo movement under way in Sweden. Stockholm District Court on Monday found journalist Cissi Wallin guilty of aggravated defamation against Fredrik Virtanen, also a journalist, after she posted on social media in 2017 that Virtanen had drugged and raped her – claims he has always denied"
I thought this guy would always want me and now he's moving on : offmychest - "There's a guy I work with and he's always made it obvious that he's interested in me, he's drunk texted me and told.me he loves me, he asked me out on dates, and he's even gone as far as borderline sexual harassment. I've always done my best to just put space between us and establish boundaries and it's never crossed a line where I've felt I really needed to go to HR but it's got very close. I recently found out he's got a girlfriend now. They've only been together for about a month but she's pretty, she's very well educated, apparently she has him completely whipped, and he talks about her like she's the greatest thing to ever happen to him and I am not interested in this guy at all but I'm feeling kind of upset about it. He was always so into me, he's always showered me with compliments, and now he's in a relationship with some other girl and he's happy? I know it's shitty of me but I always assumed he would always just be pining after me."
Comments: "When a woman gives you mixed signals, they're playing games and need the attention, it's a narcissist disorder"
"You sound like the type of person who believes you are the main character of life and everyone else is just an NPC, like in a video game. Honestly this guy dodged a bullet. You sound very narcissistic and manipulative and should probably seek some sort of counseling. You sound like you're probably an adult, yet you're struggling with basic social skills."
Guess #MeToo doesn't work for all women
The Defenestration of Domingo - "The #MeToo movement has ended the U.S. career of legendary 78-year-old Spanish tenor Placido Domingo, one of classical music’s greatest ambassadors and impresarios... the AP announced that nine females, all but one anonymous, were accusing Domingo of making unwanted sexual advances decades ago. The accusers—chorus singers, a few small-time soloists, and one ballet dancer—alleged wet kisses, solicitations to rehearse at his apartment, whispered blandishments while on stage, a hand down a shirt or up a skirt in cabs, and persistent phone calls.The latest of the incidents allegedly occurred in the early 2000s; most dated from the 1980s and 1990s. Some of the accusers had had voluntary sexual liaisons with the singer, yet still asserted victimhood... By all accounts, Domingo backed off when told explicitly to do so. None of the accusers alleged quid pro quo pressure to have sex in exchange for a role. Some alleged that their careers plateaued after they broke off relations, without providing any evidence that he was responsible or that their careers were still on an upward trajectory. Nevertheless, the claim that he sometimes “professionally punished those who rejected him,” in the words of the New York Times, has now become a standard feature of the anti-Domingo narrative... Without waiting to hear more, the Philadelphia Orchestra booted him from its season-opening gala because, it said, it was “committed to providing a safe, supportive, respectful, and appropriate environment for the orchestra and staff, for collaborating artists and composers, and for our audiences and communities.” The San Francisco Opera also cancelled Domingo’s upcoming engagements. LA Opera launched an investigation and suspended Domingo from day-to-day management... the story was shifting yet again. Just as it had become received wisdom, contrary to any reported facts, that Domingo retaliated against females who rebuffed him, it is now suggested that LA Opera failed to respond to harassment allegations, even though no one has reported making such allegations to management. The gloating was immediate... There are three possible justifications for Domingo’s scourging, each more unpersuasive than the last. The first is to punish his past behavior. But his alleged infractions occurred decades ago, making punishment too belated to be just or meaningful. None of his accusers brought their objections to anyone in authority. If they wanted to punish him, that would have been the time to do so. Now, the overwhelmingly anonymous nature of the accusations and the passage of time prevent Domingo from mounting a defense. Some of the alleged incidents were undoubtedly more ambiguous than the accusers are disclosing. But without a known accuser, Domingo cannot establish the facts of these incidents, even if he could remember what may have been a fleeting and misunderstood gesture.The second justification is a symbolic one: to demonstrate feminist solidarity... such expressions of piety should not take precedence over getting the facts right, and none of the institutions that pushed Domingo out the door established any factual record.The third justification is the most frequently invoked: safety. Domingo’s mere presence in an opera house or concert hall allegedly puts the safety of that venue’s female employees at risk. The threat extends beyond the stage. It sinks into the orchestra pit like a miasma. It overflows into the audience and the surrounding community... Are we supposed to believe, in this era of “strong women,” that a female chorister is so vulnerable and weak that, faced with someone who is operating under a potential death sentence, she can’t simply rebuff an advance? Domingo’s 20 accusers somehow survived the trauma of being propositioned by one of the opera world’s most charismatic stars... Here is the reality of Domingo’s world: It is shot through with sexual energy and tension. Performers and staff work long hours in an enterprise requiring the passion and willpower to conquer some of the most challenging works in the musical repertoire. Put males and females in any high-pressure, close-contact situation, and Eros will make an immediate appearance—just ask the spouses of lawyers in white shoe law firms or of soldiers in gender-integrated Army barracks. In the performing arts, filled with oversized personalities and appetites, the erotic currents are particularly headstrong. Females threw themselves at Domingo. Young fans pled with his assistants to get their phone numbers into his hands. Wealthy socialites tried to arrange affairs. Singers sought out liaisons. Many of their advances were unwelcome. Does that make his suitors harassers? This kind of female behavior is routinely excised from the #MeToo narrative that presents a world apparently composed exclusively of male rapists and female victims, and which declines to acknowledge the billions of dollars that women invest annually in make-up and clothes they hope will make them more desirable to the opposite sex... He clearly belongs to the “Latin Lover” prototype, a good-natured, charming seducer from the old Hollywood era. Learning to deal with such types used to be part of a woman’s skill set. The instigator of a sexual advance does not know beforehand whether it will be wanted or not; he (or she) is taking a chance. It is up to the target of that advance to signal how it has been received. If the would-be seducer does not back off, the seducee needs to escalate to whatever level of explicitness is required, however uncomfortable it may be to elevate what is unspoken and ambiguous into the realm of language and clarity... An unwanted advance is not sexual assault, despite the fashionable conflation of the two... It is doubtful that the average female would want to live in a world where males remain chastely aloof until overtly invited to engage... the brittle rigidity of contemporary feminism does not recognize nuance or shades of fault and responsibility. It has no tolerance for human diversity. Drunk on its own power, it is turning its massive armamentarium of narcissistic grievance on male success with an ever more neurotic standard of transgression. Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo has been suspended from future performances at the Metropolitan Opera and Britain’s Royal Opera for allegedly sexually assaulting a ballet dancer in full view of the audience during a curtain call in Japan on September 18 of this year. Grigolo had just finished a performance in the title role of Gounod’s Faust, whose staging in the touring Royal Opera production called for a pregnant woman to offer Faust her belly to touch. During the curtain call, Grigolo light-heartedly patted that same dancer’s prosthetic paunch. The dancer protested. Grigolo told her to “fuck off,” by his own admission. The tenor says that he was offered no opportunity to apologize, but was “put on a plane and sent . . . home like a killer.” If such adrenalin-fueled post-performance hijinks now constitutes sexual assault, the show may no longer go on. Federal appellate judge Alex Kozinski was destroyed by a handful of former female clerks, including Slate columnist Dahlia Lithwick, for his juvenile sense of sexual humor... Michael Steinhardt, pioneering Wall Street entrepreneur and now full-time philanthropist, was denounced on the front page of the New York Times for his patently unserious sexual banter... The feminist nostrum that “the personal is political” was false from its inception. It has now become a warhead aimed at the edifice of a civilization deemed too male... I am cutting off my support for the Metropolitan Opera; other donors who care about our musical inheritance should do the same.At least cowardice in the face of feminist grievance appears to be predominantly an Anglo-American affliction. So far, Domingo’s future engagements in Moscow, Vienna, Hamburg, Valencia, Milan, Cologne, Krakow, Berlin, Madrid, and Munich have not been cancelled. The director of the Vienna State Opera, Dominique Meyer, said over the summer that Vienna would honor its contracts with Domingo, who is “valued both artistically and as a human being by all in this house.”... Domingo brought beauty into the world. He inspired and helped thousands of female singers and instrumentalists. His demise won’t placate the resentment brigades; it will only embolden them for the next hit."
#MeToo Survey | Organisations Don't Want To Hire Women | Male Bosses Shying Away From Meeting Them - "While the #MeToo campaign surely scared many men who took advantage of their women colleagues at work, the movement also had it’s share of fake cases or accusations by women which were motivated to blackmail and threaten the men in power. The result of this misuse has become a disadvantage for the women workforce since then. A survey, led by Professor Lean Atwater of Houston University, claims that men are now shying away from giving jobs to women after the #MeToo outburst. According to the survey:
At least 19 percent of men have said that they do not want to give jobs to ‘attractive women’
21 percent of the men said that they do not want to give jobs to women in those positions, where they have direct contact with men
27 percent of men said that they now shy away from meeting women
Men are more aware of the sexual assaults, that are considered sexual, than women"
#MeToo, Trump and misreading The Handmaid's Tale - "Atwood and her most famous book owe their sanctification, in part, to the political rise of that barrel-bellied, blonde beast Donald Trump. Following the announcement of his presidential candidature in the summer of 2015, feminist paranoia hit the roof... Plucking The Handmaid’s Tale out of the 1980s, and applying its vision to the supposed ‘everyday sexism’ of the late 2010s, is to erase the vast advances made by women over the past 40 years. In fact, there are other important trends informing The Handmaid’s Tale obscured by today’s simplified feminist reading. Atwood’s novel arrived, for instance, towards the tail end of a protracted period of paranoia during the Cold War — Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’, the missile-defence programme, had been announced in 1983. Hence The Handmaid’s Tale plays on distinctly Cold War fears, set, as it is, at a time of unexplained nuclear and ecological disaster.The Handmaid’s Tale was also published slap bang in the middle of the AIDS panic. So, the Republic of Gilead features men who have become inexplicably sterile and women who give birth to ‘shredders’ (severely deformed babies). In the Republic of Gilead, sex and procreation are a risk.Like all good science fiction, then, Atwood’s dystopian world reflects the paranoias, prejudices and panics of the society she is observing. Atwood’s exploration of these contemporary fears – fear of sex, fear of political and religious fundamentalism and fear of impending global doom – turns the The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments into far more than simple-minded feminist handbooks.But that is precisely what too many have argued that The Handmaid’s Tale and now The Testaments are — namely, contemporary feminist handbooks. This interpretation ignores a key part of Atwood’s worldview: her championing of freedom of expression... That is why the contemporary feminist co-option of The Handmaid’s Tale sits awkwardly. Because Atwood’s championing of the importance and revolutionary power of freedom of speech and thought goes against the censorious tendency of today’s feminist politics. At one point in The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred is reminded of the earlier times in which she was free, and reminisces about her life with her partner Luke and her daughter, who was taken from her. Offred considers the difference between then, when ‘women were not protected’ and there were ‘rules that were never spelled out but every woman knew’ with regards to avoiding the dangers of strange men, and her present in the Republic of Gilead: ‘Now we walk along the same street, in red pairs, and no man shouts obscenities at us, speaks to us, touches us. No one whistles.’ This is perhaps the most politically powerful moment in the book. Offred remembers the tyrant Aunt Lydia’s words: ‘There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from.’ The freedom to speak and act versus the freedom from offence and hurt. If Atwood’s novel is a warning, it is not about sexist old men like Trump. Rather, it is about the danger of giving up the freedom and risks of a liberated life for the sterile regulation of the safe space. The Testaments actually develops this theme, emphasising the importance of freedom of speech... Atwood’s actual political vision tends to be eclipsed by her contemporary deification. She can’t even get a hearing for herself, such is her mythical reputation now. For example, in an article published three months after #MeToo started, headlined ‘Am I a bad feminist?’, Atwood questioned #MeToo’s scalp-hungry nature... for asserting that ‘women are human beings, with the full range of saintly and demonic behaviours this entails, including criminal ones’, Atwood was castigated on social media as a victim-blamer... unlike Dame Ann Leslie, Catherine Deneuve and other high-profile female critics of the excesses of #MeToo, Atwood’s transgression has been politely ignored by most. Her role as the creator The Handmaid’s Tale is too important to allow her to have nuanced views on contemporary feminist politics."
"I want you to be strong & live your life with whole respect, as your husband has not done anything" - "Swaroop, 35, worked as an IT executive at Genpact in Noida for over ten years. In December last year, the assistant vice-president had been barred by the company from taking any official work pending an inquiry of an internal complaints committee (ICC), into the allegations of sexual harassment against him by two female employees. He was suspended temporarily over allegations.Unfortunately, even before the enquiry was complete, Raj committed suicide at his home in Noida"
