Pass me some law enforcement; I'm feeling oppressed (or, wherein Feminist legal scholar Catherine McKinnon plays the same old song)

#MeToo and the culture of punishments: Reply to feminist legal scholar Catherine MacKinnon

Comment published in New York Times online, February 5, 2018, reply to: “#MeToo has done what the law could not,” Catherine A. MacKinnon (Professor of Law, University of Michigan, author of “For a Feminist State,” and advocate of legal prohibition of pornography), February 4, 2018:

MacKinnon plays the same old song:

To require several accusers to believe a victim likely guilty is to discredit the accusers themselves, and so deny them the sacred truth of their experience, which presumably is necessarily or at least probably true if they say it is. 

To care about what happens to the accused person is to deny the accusers the human right to be believed and have their experience validated. It’s us vs. them, and in legal disputes, or what should be, with their characteristic doubt and need for proof and procedural fairness, we the violated victims are right as a political matter. Legal procedures are a detail; the truth is this is a political cause and "we" know we are right. 

Yes, it is true that changing the culture is more important than changing laws and that the latter could not happen without the former. It is interesting that of all people, Catherine McKinnon would now say this, having worked so hard for so long to change laws. Even now, McKinnon calls for “shunning perpetrators.” This is another form of punishment. 

People like Harvey Weinstein are childish playboys who need to grow up and if need be get help learning that this entitlement and enjoyment culture is not happy for anyone. Rape culture will end not when more men fear punishment, but when no man can think it would make sense to do that. Weinstein might not if he thought more about some of the films he helped make. 

Guys, let's thank #MeToo for making us all think.