How #MeToo Threatens Equality

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/15/opinion/sexual-harassment.html

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To the Editor:

Re “Donald Trump’s Gift to Women” (column, Dec. 14): The new wave of #MeToo-inspired feminist reform that Gail Collins anticipates looks backward to old notions of feminine fragility and moral purity. Following the questionable lead of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, this movement fails to distinguish between rape, harassment and groping, labeling every woman a survivor, without evaluating her accusation, whether she says she was subject to a sexual assault, sexual extortion or a clumsy, unwelcome advance in a bar.

Equating a hand on your knee with a grope up your skirt, a violent assault or sexual demands by your employer trivializes trauma and diminishes women, threatening the drive for equality. If we’re too weak to withstand sexual incivility, if we’re too pure to ever misrepresent or misconceive past encounters, then we’re not fit to exercise equal rights at the expense of special protections.

WENDY KAMINER, BOSTON