For all the promises of the #MeToo movement, spearheaded in 2017 in the wake of Harvey Weinstein and other sex abuse scandals that rocked the entertainment industry, the concept of ripping down the power barriers and exposing abuse has fallen short. Quite short.
It wasn’t just a good idea, it was a necessary one — so necessary that it should have affected every sector, from entertainment and tech to politics and culture. However, it’s become clear, four years on, that the #MeToo movement was really just another example of leftist virtue signaling. Not all women are worthy enough to be saved.
Take Sen. Kyrsten Sinema: not a victim of overt sexual abuse by the likes of Harvey Weinstein (for all we know) but a victim of harassment and abuse nonetheless. Stalked to the bathroom and videotaped by immigrant members of the Living United for Change in Arizona, Sinema received little media sympathy. The moment was defended, even celebrated. Sarah Jones in New York magazine writes:
Jezebel piled on: “Absolutely Confront Kyrsten Sinema Outside Of Her Bathroom Stall.”
Senators and representatives do work for the people, and the people should hold them accountable. However, even a politician with whom one disagrees has the right to use the lavatory in privacy — or have we fallen so far down the path of decency?
Few came to Sinema’s aid. While hardly a conservative, the Arizonian Democrat challenges both sides, imitating a bit of the late Sen. John McCain, also from Arizona. Liberals don’t like her one bit, so Sinema will not be invited to revel in the safety of the MeToo movement. She isn’t the right woman.
It gets worse: Now the MeToo movement ignores outright claims of sex abuse. The New York Times allowed a victim to write her story of CNN news anchor Chris Cuomo’s sex abuse toward her. Any outrage? Crickets. Why? Cuomo is a notorious liberal, beloved by the mainstream media. He is above reproach.
Some of the worst kinds of sexual abuse, in the form of human trafficking, have seen an uptick since the pandemic began in places such as Philadelphia and Houston. The Council on Foreign Relations predicted human trafficking would thrive in an environment where the economy is slower, parents are stressed, and children are unmonitored, isolated, and kept from school. And human trafficking has thrived to the detriment of our teenage girls.
Just days ago, news anchor Dan Abrams reported a heart-wrenching story about a 17-year-old from Texas lured into sex trafficking in early 2020. She’s been missing ever since. Thousands of young girls and boys are lured into a revolting industry, right under our noses, groomed and trapped by abusive tactics. Where is Hollywood now? Where are all the #MeToo advocates now that we can clearly see children being traded for sexual perversion? The #MeToo movement does not protect children, even if they are girls.
Where is the #MeToo movement when we need it most? The #MeToo movement began with good intentions, but it became nothing but a showpiece of idealism about how women should be treated, particularly if they fit into a specific mold à la Christine Blasey Ford’s accusations toward then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh. The movement faded into uselessness when it became clear that success would require all women to be treated with respect, be they Republicans, Democrats, white, black, women abused by men in power, or children abused in the shadows. Like so many wonderful ideas, leftism subverts and destroys anything that does not completely align with its tenets.
Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She was the 2010 recipient of the American Spectator’s Young Journalist Award.
