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2017: year of the feminist?

December 15, 2017   ·   0 Comments

WE WONDER WHAT ALABAMA voters thought when, on the eve of Monday’s special Senate election that saw Democrat Doug Jones win narrowly over Republican Roy Moore, that the Miriam-Webster dictionary had picked “feminism” as the word of the year for 2017.

Was it just a coincidence that during the election campaign several women came forward alleging that Mr. Moore, a former chief justice of the state’s supreme court, had engaged in sexual misconduct with them nearly 40 years ago when he was an assistant district attorney in his 30s?

The Republican candidate denied the allegations, terming them all false and malicious, including one from a woman who says she was just 14 when he attacked her in his car.

While Donald Trump discounted the allegations and threw his support behind the controversial Senate candidate, his daughter Ivanka came out on the side of his alleged victims.

“There’s a special place in hell for people who prey on children,” she told the Associated Press when asked about Mr. Moore. “I’ve yet to see a valid explanation [from Mr. Moore] and I have no reason to doubt the victims’ accounts.”

Perhaps the ultimate irony is that as the election was about to take place, Democratic senator Al Franken bowed to demands that he resign in the face of allegations that strike us as less serious than those against either Mr. Moore or Donald Trump.

Most of the misconduct alleged against Senator Franken involved groping or forcibly trying to kiss women in the days before the former comic became a senator, the most damaging evidence being a photo in which he smiled at the camera while appearing to touch the breasts of Leeann Tweeden, a Los Angeles-based news anchor, when she was 16 and accompanying him on a USO tour in 2006. (She also said he had forcibly kissed her.)

Perhaps the biggest difference between Messrs. Franken and Moore is that the Minnesota Democrat admitted to some (albeit not all) of the alleged misbehaviour.

Of course, one huge problem when it comes to judging such allegations is that there is virtually no chance of police (or anyone else) getting supportive evidence in the case of assaults that do not include sexual intercourse.

Accordingly, any judgment as to the validity of the allegations that involve incidents 10 to 40 years ago should take into account both how much the world has changed and the role now being played by feminism.

Miriam-Webster defines feminism as: 1. the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes; 2. organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests.

There surely is no doubt that in most of the 20th Century males were the dominant gender, particularly when it came to law and politics. It wasn’t until 1981 that President Ronald Reagan appointed the first female member of the U.S. Supreme Court, in Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

And there should be little doubt that in the case of Roy Moore he has always sought and occupied positions of power, whether as a prosecutor, jurist or politician.

Even today, there is precious little evidence of true equality of the sexes in the U.S., particularly when it comes to the Trump administration, where most of the cabinet is male with backgrounds in business or the military.

However, there is equally no doubt that feminism has played a major role in the wave of allegations against some powerful figures in both politics and Hollywood, with the alleged victims of sexual abuse explaining that in the past they had either feared the consequences of speaking out or felt no one would believe them.

As we see it, in the years ahead men are going to have to think twice before giving a woman a hug or a kiss on the cheek – at least until she makes it clear to them that such activity is welcome.

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