Far too many men, including Jian Gomeshi, still don’t see that the world has changed

Asking all-male septuagenarian senators to pass judgment on a woman with greater courage than any of them have shown is a travesty

Come now, gentlemen, let’s get one thing straight.

The “Me too” movement has a male corollary. Let’s call it the “You, too!” movement. Membership requires that you accept that it is not a sexual predator’s right to decide when he is behaving badly. Anti-Semites no longer get to make jokes about Jews and claim no offence. Abusers cannot claim they meant no harm.

There will be times when the antiharassment crusade veers into groundless weaponized attacks. Yes, there is a difference between looming over a shorter woman to gaze at her cleavage and a savage rape, with commensurate differences in punishment.

But no, you don’t get to say that a victim, risking public shaming, loss of friends, perhaps even her family’s own safety, is “confused” about who was straddled on top of her and forcing his hand over her mouth. No one can have watched Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony and have any doubts as to her terrified truth-telling.

My generation has a considerable payback owing, for every time we did not tell a friend that a salacious sneer about an attractive woman was offensive, or we cast a blind eye to the party gropes of junior staffers by drunken bosses. Or when we failed to recognize when we, too, took too many liberties with women trained to accept, uncomplaining, all manner of unwelcome advances.

Asking all-male septuagenarian senators to pass judgment on a woman with demonstrably far greater courage than any of them have shown is, of course, a travesty. One can only say that if this were 1818, they might have been represented community standards and contemporary mores. Two centuries later they are a very bad joke as “fair process” judges.

Clarence Thomas sits on the highest court as a result of some of those same senators’ blindness. He has cast a shadow over the court since his arrival. An accused attempted rapist would deeply stain the bench for decades.

The GOP’s decision to continue down this staggeringly sexist path will mean that a large majority of Americans, who hold to a different and higher morality, will be revolted. On Nov. 6, hopefully, many of them will deliver a crushing political judgment.

Their declared intention to continue with this strategic blunder, makes them guilty, however; their willful undermining of the respect for, and credulity of the Supreme Court itself. Can anyone ever be confident of a court decision’s fairness or probity if Brett Kavanaugh is the swing vote?

Sadly, there are too many others who still do not get it, Jian Gomeshi among them. His egregious slippery nonapology should not have been given uncritical publication in a respected literary journal.

There is surely no excuse, either, for an accused young politician today who still does not understand that sincerity, authenticity, and credibility in your acceptance of your transgressions draw the red line between being forgiven and being shunned.

The proof touchstones today are no longer merely the law. They are your demonstrated respect for the ethics and values of the community, of which you are privileged to be a member.

To Hamlet, Queen Gertrude sneered at the sincerity of an actress’s claim of eternal sexual fidelity, “Methinks, the lady doth protest too much.” Even after four centuries it remains one of the pithiest admonitions to all those whose protestations strain credulity.

So gentlemen, from all of we dottering boomers down to those adolescents who remain deaf to “No!,” give your heads a shake. This is a new era. What was, is acceptable no more. Let’s start by ensuring that all the men and boys in our lives hear and see in us, our commitment to respect and courtesy, where invitations to intimacy are concerned.

And that, in the face of all their inspiring bravery, we always give the benefit of the doubt to the inevitably demeaned victim who shows the courage to stare down the nasties and the trolls that inevitably await her — or him — for standing up. Robin V. Sears is a principal at Earnscliffe Strategy Group and was an NDP strategist for 20 years. He is a freelance contributor for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @robinvsears