Memo to All Women: Best Way to Protect #MeToo Is to Think #UsToo

MEMORANDUM

To: All women

From: A former adjudicator of sexual harassment claims

Re: Fortifying #MeToo in the post-Harvey Weinstein era

With the guilty verdict of one-time Hollywood mogul and seemingly full-time sexual predator Harvey Weinstein reached this week (also here), the #MeToo movement — which had come to be seen as “gone too far” and “out of control” in the trial’s run-up — now gets a big, big break. Women of the world, let us take advantage of this big, big break — this window of opportunity — and work in concert to protect this historic and invaluable movement.

How? By getting on the same page in understanding how historic and invaluable #MeToo is. And understanding that, powerful as #MeToo is as social movement and force for change, it can also be damaged, even undone — even used against women — with comparatively little effort, spun into equal and opposing power by the force-multiplier of social media, by those wishing to push women back into subservience.

In other words, we must sail our worthy ship — call it Pequod — and chase the Great White Whale of sexual harassment — call it Moby-Dick — exercising our navigational skills in such a way that the behemoth does not outmaneuver us, is not allowed to turn round and ram this worthy ship of ours, destroying it as Moby-Dick did in Melville’s novel, leaving only “chips in the vortex.” Case in point: Climate science…