Last year became the year feminists captured a golden opportunity to speak out and previously silent victims flocked out of the closet. It was a year in which Harvey Weinstein went from hero to zero and Kevin Spacey got exposed as being his own creepy character from House of Cards. The names haven’t stopped emerging.
When will it end? I am a supporter of all campaigns against sexual assault, as any self-respecting woman would be. But, I want it to be done in the right way to get the right change and criminalize the right people.
The #MeToo campaign has given women a pedestal to accuse their male counterparts without giving them much chance for reprisal. What if some of the accused are innocent?
What I am against is the use of the media to ruin the reputation of actors, politicians, and many men in between, by making unsubstantiated claims that give men no fair chance at redemption. But, in particular, social media, more often than not, is used to present an altered, not fully truthful image of an individual to the public. Throughout this campaign, have you been party to a man’s side of the story? No—because social media has deemed the man’s story almost irrelevant.
A storm has been created by women during this #MeToo campaign. This storm has made men the enemy. However, just because an outstanding number of women have participated in #MeToo, does not allow us to make the media a fitting source of trial for those being accused.
It has affected both the public and the private sphere, with men being branded as criminals without being tried in court. They have been subjected to trial by media, which can hardly be considered a dependable and integral source of trial, particularly in light of the 2016 American election.
In our societal climate, to be publicly accused is to be convicted. Why should the media treat them differently than how the Supreme Court treats its criminals—innocent until proven guilty? We do not yet know the court outcome of the allegations that have been made, so we must try to avoid believing the accusers just because history has previously undervalued the female opinion. We cannot make up for prejudice against women by championing them without verification of these claims now.
What I am requesting is that we withhold our judgement before accusations make it to the court. We need to allow a more authoritative power than Twitter or Facebook to substantiate these testimonials. If we do not, we may be in danger of letting freedom of speech on the internet take advantage of us and our opinions.
The #MeToo campaign has been incredible in bringing the conversation of sexual assault to the forefront and it has achieved great things. But, we must allow it to progress in the appropriate and fair way so as not to jeopardize the credibility of the campaign.
We only need to look back to the 1970s and see how prominent feminist Andrea Dworkin polarized the successes of the women’s movement by making it too extreme for the popular vote through her aggressive anti-pornography ideas. She became a symbol for ‘anti-sex’ and found enemies in free speech campaigners.
#MeToo must align with the integrity of our justice system to save ourselves from being trapped in the crevasses of the internet. Social media has taken us so far, to our benefit. But now a higher power must take over to ensure a fair trial for those that have been accused and to avoid our lives being totally dictated by the mob mentality of the internet.
