Feeding the guillotine
One of the indelible memories from 10th-grade English is Madame Defarge in “A Tale of Two Cities,” sitting by the guillotine and calmly knitting the names of the doomed aristocrats into her patterns. She is a study in contrasts: Icy indifference to the suffering of the French Terror’s victims coupled with a long simmering rage against the privileged class that raped her sister, killed her father and brother and destroyed her family.
Revenge, they say, is a dish best served cold. In the case of Therese Defarge, it was served on ice. And it was potent.
I can’t help but think of Dickens angriest female character when considering what has been happening during this months-long #metoo moment. Every day, another man falls victim to the pointed finger. Accusations have been raised against men who admit their bad behavior, and those who are defiant in the face of the attacks. Kevin Spacey, Louis CK, Dustin Hoffman and some notable others have essentially fallen on their swords and acknowledged “something.” Al Franken has gone even further and welcomed an investigation into his transgressions.
Then there are the men who take a position like Colonel Travis at the Alamo: Not backing down, pushing back, angry that someone changed the rules in the middle of the game. John Conyers refuses to say he did anything wrong, and his supporters imply that it’s a crusade of white women falsely accusing a black man. Roy Moore admits he dated teenagers but vigorously denies he molested them. Charlie Rose doesn’t “think” what he did was abuse, and Garrison Keillor, unrepentant about touching the bare flesh of a coworker turns out to be a Little Louse on the Prairie.
And then, there are the ones popping Dramamine and waiting to be noticed. The well-oiled guillotine casts a long shadow these days.
As the days have passed and I have seen heads fall, sliced off neatly by the awakened memories of once sleeping lionesses, it’s beginning to look like a scene from Orwell’s “1984.” Big Brother, the character that ruled the totalitarian state of Oceania and kept its people under strict behavioral control and surveillance has become Big Sister.
She and her fellow travelers have rewritten the rules, and they are strict and retroactive. If a woman claims that she has been harassed, the default position is to believe her. If you question the story, you are a misogynist, even if you are a woman yourself. If evidence is presented that undermines the credibility of the accuser, ignore it or be accused of victim shaming.
And if the conduct happened 10, 20, or 40 years ago when it was commonplace, albeit regrettable, it doesn’t matter: The guillotine must be fed, and the basket filled with heads.
Big Sister will not let you question the speed with which careers are being dismantled. Big Sister demands that you walk in lockstep and acknowledge that the patriarchy has infected every element of society, and so there must be a purging. So what if a few innocent people are sacrificed in the rush for purification? As an editor at Teen Vogue tweeted, “Sorry, if some innocent men’s reputations have to take a hit in the process of undoing the patriarchy, that is a price I am absolutely willing to pay.” That was even too much for Jake Tapper, who replied, “And it’s not a price *you* would be paying, btw. It would be innocent men doing that.”
That single exchange points out the real danger of Big Sister and the #metoo moment. We can all be happy about how women are finally finding their voices and fighting back against harrassment, some of which is as horrific as actual rape and some of which is as inconsequential as a lingering look at cleavage.
But the fact that we are now willing to look at the ravaged reputations of the accused as so much social road kill without considering the consequences of poorly researched, poorly documented accusations is as scary as the furies that were unleashed during the French Revolution.
Last week, I met with a man who’d been falsely accused of sexual assault. His life is in ruins. Big Sister doesn’t care, because she has a mission to accomplish.
Knit one, purl two.