Hysterial Responses to #metoo

I keep hearing that #metoo has gone too far too fast. It is just hysteria, the things men have been fired for are too minor.

When I ask which claim is a hysterical minority - rape, groping, sexual harassment, asking women to have babies and then holding them back at work when they say no, locking women in rooms so a man could expose his dick, a man having his penis groped in public - the conversation changes.
It refocuses on the concern that in the future men might not get due process or will be innocently removed from their jobs. 

This argument is basically, "Stop while it is working and no wrongdoing has happened so that men are protected from losing their jobs innocently."

We don't have to stop doing the right thing because the wrong thing might happen in the future. We can talk about the overreach when someone overreaches.

I think the real fear here is that men feel accountable for the first time and they are afraid. They are afraid they might say the wrong thing and upset a woman's feelings and get fired.

Men are finally starting to feel what women have been feeling since the beginning of time. If we aren't nice enough - we are bitches. If we are nice, some men think we are signaling sexual attraction. If we don't signal attraction, we cannot get promoted. If we signal attraction, men hit on us.
We are not hitting some over reach, we are hitting a balance; a time when men feel as afraid of the sexual misunderstandings or interests of their workmates as women do.

I would like to remind people that women innocently lose their jobs because they cannot negotiate men's sexual feelings at work. To demand that women give up on a safe workspace in order to make sure men stay safe is to assert that men are more important than women, work is their space and women are the visitors at work. Men are entitled to work, women are not.

That is sexism and it's male privilege. A man demanding he not be held to the same work conditions as women because it is unfair is just fragility.

Everyone should be able to go to work without having to protect a man's fragile sexual ego or his privilege.

The Perplexing Defense of Al Franken

My dismay grows ever deeper when I hear the defenses of Al Franken. They all really boil down to the same thing - she did some kind of sex work, so she is not credible but even if it is true, a worthless woman like her should not be able to bring a valuable man like him down.

I have even seen grown adults saying that because she did nude modeling, she cannot feel emotional effects of sexual assault or sexual harassment – so she is exaggerating her claims of distress.
Even more boggling is the argument that this is a Republican hit job. 

Sex workers get raped, sexually assaulted, and suffer all manner of sexual abuses. Selling sex, or sexual fantasy does not relinquish your right to consenting to sexual activity. It does not make you immune to the effects of sexual violence and abuse.

Franken admitted to the incidents, and there are pictures of the incidents. If he says it happened, and there are pictures that it happened, her credibility should not be the issue but it is still.

Her credibility is so bad, her negative actually outweighs Franken's positive credibility? That no matter what she says, no matter how it is confirmed, the fact that she said it means it is not true?
Credibility, the likelihood that she is telling the truth, is not what it is about. Credibility is being used as a placeholder term for value.

Sexual chastity is so closely tied to a woman's value that if she dares to have a sexual identity or worse - use it to get money - she is considered fair game for abuse.

We can know she is honest and truthful but our society values her so little that no act is bad enough that a man should be punished for it.

The police and prosecutors actually have a term for it, NHI. NHI stands for No Humans Involved. It is an informal category of crimes which fall to the lowest priority and often are not investigated at all. NHI crimes include crimes against prostitutes, sex workers, drug addicts, drug dealers, and police informants.

While the term NHI may be falling out of use, the category still exists. Serial killers target prostitutes at such a high rate because no one cares to investigate.

As for hit being a hit job - he admitted to it. He did it. So the question is even if the Republicans brought her forward, how does that absolve him of his responsibility?