Sex and power. #MeToo, one year on

A movement sparked by an alleged rapist could be the most powerful force for equality since women’s suffrage

A YEAR ago Harvey Weinstein was exposed as a sexual predator. Until then his treatment of women was an open secret among some of the film industry’s publicists, lawyers and journalists. Mr Weinstein had been protected by an unspoken assumption that in some situations powerful men can set their own rules. Over the past year that assumption has unravelled with welcome speed. In every walk of life powerful men have been forced out, and not just in America. Now Brett Kavanaugh may be denied a seat on America’s highest court following a series of accusations that he committed sexual assaults decades ago as a student. What began on the casting couch has made its way to the Supreme Court bench.

That is progress. And yet the fate of the #MeToo movement still hangs in the balance in America, the country where it began and where it has had the greatest effect. To see why, only look at the case of Mr Kavanaugh—who, as we went to press, was due to give testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee along with Christine Blasey Ford, his main accuser. The good news is that the appetite for change is profound; the bad news is that men’s predation of women risks becoming yet one more battlefield in America’s all-consuming culture wars.

Anmer’s kick

Thanks to #MeToo, women’s testimony is at last being taken more seriously. For too long, when a woman spoke out against a man, the suspicion was turned back on her. In 1991 when Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas, now a Supreme Court judge, of sexual harassment, his defenders smeared her as “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty”. The machine backing Mr Kavanaugh is equally determined. However, it has refrained from questioning either Ms Blasey Ford’s sanity or her morals. In 2018 voters would find that unacceptable.

Abuse by men is being taken more seriously, too. Mr Weinstein allegedly committed dozens of sexual assaults, including rape. The contrast between his brutality and his impunity shook the world out of its complacency. This week Bill Cosby, once America’s highest-paid actor, was jailed for being a sexually violent predator. But women in colleges and workplaces all over America are harmed by abuse that falls short of rape. Thanks to #MeToo, this is more likely to be punished. Most defences of Mr Kavanaugh have focused on his presumed innocence; 30 years ago they would have insisted that the drunken fumblings of a 17-year-old are a fuss about nothing.

These shifts reflect a broad social change. Before the elections of 2016, 920 women sought the advice of EMILY’s List, which promotes the candidacy of pro-choice Democratic women. Since Donald Trump was elected president, it has been contacted by 42,000. Outside politics, companies are keen for their staff and their customers to think that they buy in to #MeToo.

One worry is that there may be a gap between corporate rhetoric and reality. Another is uncertainty about what counts as proof. That is largely because evidence of an instance of abuse often consists of something that happened behind a closed door, sometimes long ago.

Striking a balance between accuser and accused is hard. Ms Blasey Ford has the right to be heard, yet so does Mr Kavanaugh. Mr Kavanaugh’s reputation is at stake, but so is the Supreme Court’s. In weighing these competing claims, the burden of proof must be reasonable. Mr Kavanaugh is not facing a trial that could cost him his liberty, but interviewing for a job. The standard of proof should be correspondingly lower. Neither the court nor natural justice is served by haste.

Also a problem is the grey zone inhabited by men who have not been convicted in court, but are judged guilty by parts of society. Just now, every case is freighted with precedent-setting significance, perhaps because attitudes are in flux. This month Ian Buruma was forced out as editor of the New York Review of Books after publishing an essay by an alleged abuser which failed to acknowledge the harm he had done. Mr Buruma did not deserve to go and, were values more settled, his critics might have been content with an angry letter to the editor. #MeToo needs a path towards atonement or absolution.

And #MeToo has become bound up with partisanship. According to polling earlier this year by Pew, 39% of Republican women think it is a problem that men get away with sexual harassment and assault, compared with 66% of Democratic women; 21% of Republican men think it is a problem that women are not believed, compared with 56% of Democratic men. Mr Kavanaugh, however his nomination turns out, is likely to deepen that divide—if only because Republican zeal to rush his confirmation is further evidence that the party puts power first. That was clear when it backed Mr Trump, despite his boasts of forcing himself on women and allegations of sexual misconduct by at least 19 accusers. Under Bill Clinton, who was also accused of sexual assault, the Democrats were not so very different. They now offer less protection.

If #MeToo in America becomes a Democrats-only movement, it will be set back. Some men will excuse their behaviour on the ground that it is hysteria whipped up by the left to get at Republicans. Those questions about proof, fairness and rehabilitation will become even harder to resolve.

Think ahead

It takes a decade or more for patterns of social behaviour to change. #MeToo is just one year old. It is not about sex so much as about power—how power is distributed, and how people are held accountable when power is abused. Inevitably, therefore, #MeToo will morph into discussions about the absence of senior women from companies and gaps in average earnings between male and female workers. One protection against abuse is for junior women to work in an environment that other women help create and sustain.

Conservatives often lament the role Hollywood plays in undermining morality. With #MeToo, Tinseltown has inadvertently fostered a movement for equality. It could turn out to be the most powerful force for a fairer settlement between men and women since women’s suffrage.

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