When Men Complain #MeToo Has Gone Too Far
By: Mia Miller
Tags: Sexual Assault, Metoo, Justice, Feminism, Women

Stories where women speak up about sexual assault make a certain kind of man, very nervous. They may not have sexual assault itself to fear, but the topic is threatening to them nonetheless.

In fact, it is the #MeToo movement itself, this historic moment of male accountability for sexual violence perpetrated against women, that makes this certain kind of guy nervous. But that begs the question: if such men have not done anything wrong, not ever sexually transgressed against a woman, what is the problem? What do they possibly have to fear?

In other words: why would they need to re-centre the conversation around their concerns when women have been waiting a lifetime for any small amount of justice on one of the biggest existential threats in their lives?

The stated concern of these “good guys” is that innocent men will lose their jobs and reputations over a construed #MeToo moment. This will be the first thing the self-appointed, “good guy” will tell you when wanting to call time on #MeToo and no doubt, what they are telling themselves. And true, that could conceivably happen.

But will it ever be an issue that is remotely as widespread, as existentially threatening, and as disturbing as the dark, ugly history of male sexual violence that women have had to carry in secret up to this very point in history?

If nothing else, the “good guys” complaint about #MeToo is just another convenient way for men to deflect from the conversation of male sexual violence and re-center the concern back to…themsleves.

I’ll tell you now guys, this is a really bad look for you.

Let’s double down on perspective:

In 2016, when an audiotape went public, with the US president-to-be outing himself as a serial sexual predator, a Canadian writer, Kelly Oxford, took to Twitter and asked her female followers about their experience of sexual assault, sharing her own in the process.

"Women: tweet me your first assaults, they aren’t just stats.”

In the first hour, Oxford had received 1000 tweets in response. Throughout that evening, one million women responded, sharing their personal experience of sexual assault at the hands of men.

Women have tweeted me sexual assault stories for 14 hours straight. Minimum 50 per minute. harrowing. do not ignore. #notokay — kelly oxford (@kellyoxford) October 8, 2016

One million responses in a single evening on a single social media thread. A dam was breaking. Devastating secrets of sexual violence, kept for years and decades, were purged as a collective unburdening took place amongst women.

The tweets made for harrowing reading as women described a culture of male transgression that often began as soon as a girl turned 12. Groped. Penetrated. Rubbed against. Exposed. Masturbated on. Stalked. Slapped. Raped. Forcibly kissed.

Did men know this was what girls had been fielding out in the world, from the moment puberty was in sight?

Many men expressed shock. No, they hadn’t known. But then, why would they? Rape culture thrives on secrecy and shame. It protects the abusers and perpetuates the lie that sexual assault is rare and women have a responsibility to avoid it, rather than men have a responsibility to stop it. It is a paradigm that traps women into traumatic secret-keeping, the psychic pain inevitably contorting their bodies, minds, and relationships as it reverberates damage down through generations of mothers.

Sooner or later, something had to give. A million stories of abuse, in a lone thread on a Friday evening, was the tip of an iceberg that continues to reveal the deep misogyny submerged below the surface; the psychic, social and cultural damage of which the #MeToo movement would need a decade of dedicated hard work to come even close to uncovering, let alone healing.