THE BACKLASH BUILDS – AT 2:16 P.M. ET:   I have no doubt whatever that most of the charges made by women during the current sexual-harassment season are true.  However, many others may not be true, may be exaggerated, or may be driven by the wish for a cash payment or a career boost.

Some men are being properly punished and driven from positions they abused.  But others are seeing their lives destroyed simply because someone makes a charge.  And a backlash is building.  From the New York Post: 

Men are scared, and feminists are delighted. But the urge to call out and punish male sexual transgression is bound to clash with an inescapable truth: We’re all in this together, men and women.

Consider what’s happening in the capital of Florida. Female staffers and lobbyists have found “many male legislators will no longer meet with them privately,” reported The Miami Herald. “I had a senator say, ‘I need my aide here in the room because I need a chaperone,’ ” lobbyist Jennifer Green told the paper. “I said, ‘Senator, why do you need a chaperone? . . . Do you feel uncomfortable around me?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘anyone can say anything with the door shut.’ ”

“I’m getting the feeling that we’re going back 20 years as female professionals,” said Green, who owns her company. “I fully anticipate I’m going to be competing with another firm that is currently owned by some male, and the deciding factor is going to be: ‘You don’t want to hire a female lobbying firm in this environment.’ ”

This kind of thinking is catching on in aggressively P.C. Silicon Valley, where men are taking to message boards like Reddit to express interest in sex segregation — sometimes labeled “Men Going Their Own Way,” or the “Man-o-Sphere.” How will that work out for women in the tech industry, where they already face substantial challenges?

Across industries, “Several major companies have told us they are now limiting travel between the genders,” Johnny Taylor, president of the Society for Human Resource Management, told the Chicago Tribune, citing execs who tell men not to go on business trips or share rental cars with women co-workers. UCLA psychologist Kim Elsesser, the author of “Sex and the Office,” sees a nascent “sex partition.” If men start to back away from women, at least in professional settings, it’s difficult to see how that will aid the feminist cause.

As is characteristic of movements led by the left in general, #MeToo faces the prospect of being seen to push too far, too fast.

COMMENT:  It may sort itself out, but what is needed now is some maturity, not just slogans.  And what is clearly needed is a set of priorities.  Women at physical risk come first, absolutely, and women at financial risk follow close behind.  When some boorish jerk has your paycheck, and you're trying to support two kids as a single mother, that's serious.  As for the rest, a variety of procedures can be worked out.  But not every adolescent comment or frat house pat requires that a man's (or woman's) life be destroyed.

February 4, 2018