Adultery doesn’t make you a fake feminist
Joss Whedon, the writer and producer who brought us the ’90s television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is under fire for allegedly failing to uphold the feminism in his personal life that is a staple in his work.
Whedon isn’t purported to have sexually harassed or assaulted anyone, nor is he being accused of underpaying female stars — claims that, if true, would understandably disqualify him as a feminist (however, some fans are convinced he had an actress written off the 2000s show Angel when she became pregnant).
No. Strangely enough, the writer’s outspoken support of gender equality and his commitment to writing strong female leads is being called into question because he may be a serial adulterer.
According to Whedon’s ex-wife and longtime collaborator, Kai Cole, writing in a now-viral blog post published on the entertainment site the Wrap last weekend, Cole’s 16year marriage to Whedon was rife with cheating.
Cole claims that, unbeknownst to her, Whedon slept with friends, co-workers, fans and actresses while the couple was married. And now she wants the world to know.
In Cole’s own words: “I want the people who worship him to know he is human, and the organizations giving him awards for his feminist work, to think twice in the future about honouring a man who does not practice (sic) what he preaches.
“When he walked out of our marriage, and was trying to make ‘things seem less bewildering’ to help me understand how he could have lied to me for so long, he said, ‘In many ways I was the HEIGHT of normal, in this culture. We’re taught to be providers and companions and at the same time, to conquer and acquire — specifically sexually — and I was pulling off both!’ ”
Since Cole’s post went viral, a major Joss Whedon fan site has announced it will stop publishing content, and numerous feminist writers and activists have denounced Whedon online as a hypocrite and pretender; a typical “nice guy abuser.” As one Twitter user put it, Whedon’s alleged poor treatment of his ex-wife is “proof that ‘male feminists’ are just tools looking to use the nice guy card to abuse women.”
I don’t really want to go to bat for a guy who may have cheated on his wife more times than the Hellmouth opened up in Sunnydale ( Buffy reference), but I think the backlash here is more than a little overblown. Don’t get me wrong: The nice guy abuser is not a thing of legend. He’s real. Jian Ghomeshi is the textbook example of this. But Joss Whedon as adulterer doesn’t fit the bill. That Whedon may have attempted to pin the blame for his infidelity not on his own personal failings as a human being but rather on “this culture” is proof he’s a master bulls----er and a lousy husband.
But I don’t think it’s proof that his feminism is BS, nor that he is a hypocrite for supporting women’s causes and publicly denouncing sexism. Unless of course, we’ve officially entered territory where fidelity is a prerequisite to being a feminist — in which case a lot of feminists, men and women both, are screwed.
What’s shocking about this incident is not so much that a wronged spouse is dissing an unfaithful one in the press, but that so many otherwise serious feminists are taking Cole’s bait and piling on Whedon as though his alleged screwing around is tantamount to abuse.
With the massive amount of energy some have expended denouncing Whedon as a misogynist online, you’d think the guy was director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women. But Whedon is a writer, for heaven’s sakes. What did anyone honestly expect? A healthy, well-adjusted person?
It’s ludicrous to demand that artists and writers occupy the same moral high ground as religious leaders and politicians. But it’s also ludicrous to treat adultery, even when committed by a powerful man, as a sin up there with abuse or harassment. To do so not only robs the women with whom Whedon allegedly slept — even the young impressionable actresses — agency to make their own choices; it implies that to be a feminist, you must never hurt the feelings of the woman you are married to.
Because that’s what adultery amounts to: hurt feelings and, potentially, broken families. These are bad things, but the source of them is not always bad people. It is possible to strive for a better world even though your relationship with your spouse is a mess. No wonder so many people — across the gender spectrum — are reluctant to take up the feminist label. Moral purity is a tall order. Emma Teitel is a national affairs columnist.