Is Vigilante Feminism on a Rebound in the #MeToo Era?

Feminism and dangers of vigilantism

"Vigilantism is the new black, and it’s not a good look for feminists. Sanctifying accusations of sexual misconduct as proof of guilt, effectively blacklisting alleged abusers, #MeToo activists celebrate mob rule."

Wendy Kaminer, a civil liberties lawyer, opens her essay by examining if the #MeToo movement is driving feminism toward what she sees as potentially a revived era of undesired vigilantism over women's hard-won freedoms and equality. Kaminer has written widely on this topic in her essays and books, and in this essay she summarizes historic evidence and arguments that buttress her perspective that if women move down the "victimized" route with legal protectionism, they will challenge the sustaining of the sturdy roots of equality that have been won through tough-fought campaigns. 

In the concluding paragraph of her thoughtful essay (below), Kaminer cautions against regressive actions in the wake of these challenging times of #MeToo revelations. There can be no doubt that women experience personal trauma due to sexual harassment and abuse and that many women's careers have been jeopardized by men's use of power in demanding sexual favors in exchange for their advancement. Such assaults should not continue. This is a reason I am grateful for Kaminer's plea that we bear in mind women's roller-coaster experiences through history in attempting to secure equality and freedom as we seek solutions to this current crisis. She also warns us to stay acutely aware of missteps we could make that could hurt women, among whom as those who've been victimized already. Finding remedies for sexual abuse and harassment involves discussions about gender in an extremely polarized society, which seems a potentially worrisome sign that misjudgments could end up driving solutions.

"Restoring double standards of sexual behaviour and underlying sex/gender stereotypes will not free or safeguard women, much less imbue feminism and the #MeToo movement with renewed regard for fairness and individual liberty. Nor would a regression to double standards advance equality. It requires what Mary Wollstonecraft and Elizabeth Cady Stanton envisioned centuries ago: the recognition that all of us – men, women and transgendered people alike – are ‘human creatures’, burdened by the same existential anxieties and entitled to the same rights and liberties. The challenge for contemporary feminism and the #MeToo movement is the challenge of equality – if that’s still what feminists want."

I encourage you to read her essay and scroll though some of the online comments.

When I Became Murphy Brown

 
NYT Murphy Brown 1992.png
 

At the age of 27 – when baseball and I were in court – the thought of being an unwed mother wasn't even a blimp on my radar screen. Heck, I'd just gotten married and hoped soon to have children. And I decided to get married in large part to demonstrate that I could be a wife AND a woman who wrote baseball. The way the guys were writing about me back then it sounded like I was leader of the women libbers with all of the "manly" adjectives possible to muster tossed in. I hardly recognized myself in what they were writing about me, and that bothered me, a lot. Being a wife and mother, I reckoned, would go a long ways toward restoring my sense of my own identity as a woman.

In May of 1992, a week before my 41st birthday, Murphy Brown, a fictionalized unwed mother, became a target of male rage – this time Vice President Dan Quayle, who made front page news by blaming Murphy Brown and her "life style" choice for causing the LA riots. (At least that was the essence of his speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.) Within a week Random House bought my book proposal for "On Our Own: Unmarried Motherhood in America," and in 1997, my one-year old daughter Maya was with me on my book tour. After I wrote about unwed motherhood, I became her unwed mom.

I've never written about before about my sudden decision to get married during my legal action against baseball. I accepted a marriage proposal from Eric Lincoln, a fellow sportswriter, within a month of our first date in the early winter of 1978. In "Locker Room Talk" I intend to describe the emotional factors and societal pressure points that pushed me to make this rash decision, which I soon regretted.