Comment by LocalH | Hacker News Reader

Comment by LocalH | Hacker News Reader

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The #MeToo movement seems to care more about dismantling "patriarchy" than actually reducing sexual abuse. If they actually cared about abuse, they wouldn't be using tactics that destroy innocent people. They wouldn't be saying things like "#YesAllMen".

I have never raped anyone. I have never sexually assaulted anyone. I have never pressured or coerced someone into sexual contact. Plenty of times, I have met with someone with the mutual intent to copulate, and once meeting things didn't go as swimmingly in person as they did online, and so I left. Yet many of these #MeToo and #YesAllMen people would paint me with the exact same brush, merely because I have a penis and identify as male.

Yes, women have been systematically abused throughout history. But that doesn't mean that every single man is responsible or shares guilt. I share zero guilt in anything to do with sexual assault.

The #MeToo movement covers a lot of people. Any mass movement will include some more extreme than others. I don't believe your characterisaton of the movemnt is a fair description of the average person who is part of it.

I agree. I'm not talking about the average participant. I'm talking about the movement as a whole, as it organically develops and the most vocal participants become more prominent and define more of the movement. The core idea of the movement is sound and positive. However, I feel that bad actors have subverted the process from the top down. These so-called "investigations", that are so unbelievably tilted towards the accuser, have no appeals process. Some of these people even believe that due process itself should be eradicated in these cases, because we know that nobody will ever falsely accuse somebody.

The answer isn't to go back to the "old way", but the answer is also not to do what we are doing now. If even one innocent person is accused of assault, and is abandoned to the point where they commit suicide, then the ones who accused and "prosecuted" that person are fully responsible for their death. Perhaps felony murder should be expanded to such cases? It's already illegal to make a false police report, and it's arguable that certain classes of false reports should be legitimately considered felonies.

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