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Making Sense of Eric Schneiderman
The former attorney general of the state of New York had a pattern of slapping and choking women with whom he was intimate. He also spat at them, demanded threesomes, insulted them, threatened them, and called one (who had dark skin) his “brown slave.” Without warning, he slammed a girlfriend so hard that he broke her eardrum. In another case, his palm left a red welt on a woman’s face that remained visible the following day.
These and other details about Eric Schneiderman were disclosed by Ronan Farrow and Jane Meyer in The New Yorker. Keep that in mind the next time someone suggests that the liberal media are untethered to reality and serve only partisan purposes. Schneiderman is not only a Democrat, he was a key Trump antagonist, and a champion of the MeToo movement.
This has left a number of feminists both furious and bewildered. It’s disorienting to see people you admired and assumed to be moral betray everything they supposedly believed in – something conservative women (and men) have experienced too. Samantha Bee, who had often lionized Schneiderman on her show, fumed “This is especially infuriating given his supposed woke bae-ness,” she said. “Schneiderman positioned himself as a feminist crusader, he championed the #MeToo Movement … he helped craft an anti-choking law even though he’s now accused of choking his girlfriends.”
The Huffington Post consulted a psychologist to help explain how it was possible that “male allies” can become “abusers.” Katha Pollitt, who once flippantly warned “never trust a male feminist,” is almost to the point of condemning all men now. “How simple life would be if only conservatives, or liberals . . . were abusers,” she wrote. “In fact, though, the only thing one can say with assurance is that they’re men. Yes, I know women can be abusers, and I know some men are great, but at the moment #NotAllMen is looking more like a wish than a declarative statement.”
Samantha Bee’s defiant conclusion is “You know who’s a better advocate for women? Women. The future is female, or at least it better be, because I am done with this.” Katha Pollitt’s resolve is similar: “I have no answers. But here’s what I’m going to do: Vote for women. Support women. Protect women. Believe women.”
In my forthcoming book, (June 26) Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense, I push back against this feminist tendency to deride men as a class and to disparage masculinity itself as somehow pathological. In the 1970s, some second wave feminists like Ti-Grace Atkinson, president of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women, were so possessed by hatred for men in general that they lost sight of basic morality. Atkinson urged NOW to take up the cause of Valerie Solanas, founder of SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men). Solanas shot and attempted to kill Andy Warhol.
The counterculture of the 1960s and 70s broke down social norms, and then regretted what was unleashed. Today, feminists are grappling with the long roster of supposedly “enlightened” i.e. feminist men who’ve turned out to be serial abusers or worse. Samantha Bee mentioned “powerful weasels” Harvey Weinstein, Garrison Keillor, and Charlie Rose. The roster also includes Louis C.K., Al Franken, John Conyers, Matt Lauer, Mark Halperin, Leon Wieseltier, Bill Clinton, and many more.
Why are feminists more despairing about these revelations concerning liberal men than conservative women are about equally ugly stories concerning conservative men?
The answer, I’d suggest, is that liberals tend to believe that one’s politics and one’s morality are the same thing. If you hold the correct views about abortion, the minimum wage, women’s equality, gay marriage, and guns, it means not just that you agree with me, but that you are a good person. A man who champions the MeToo movement would never hurt a woman, right?
There is some mirror imaging on the right. Some conservative women are stunned to discover that men they thought were adherents of traditional morality turn out to be louts and even rapists.
A key conservative insight is that character is a matter of behavior, not professed beliefs. Judge people by their conduct, not their branding. How do you mold decent conduct? Conscientious parents who teach right from wrong and a culture that reinforces those lessons. The feminists helped to weaken some of the mores and institutions that tended to control male lust and abuse. At the time, they thought they were fighting an unjust “double standard,” but the sexual revolution damaged all standards, and we continue to sift through the fallout.
Published in Politics
Oh hell yes. I forget where I saw it, but he way overdoes booze. It’s like crazy teenager behavior, too. He’s freaking 65.
Trump said he could grab ’em by the p*ssy and I believe he did. That is conduct.
Moderator Note:
It's rude to imply that other members are not intelligent.You are wrong and right:
I never said that Trump hates women. This is your interpretation, and a bad one too. All that I ever implied was that he is an immoral creep.
You are right about my thoughts of you. I’d give you to metaphorical towel, to dry those poor eyes of yours, but you’d probably think up some psychological message I was trying to send, with that “brilliant” brain of yours!This is so ridiculous. All the excuses and sycophants of Trump say this. No one wants to elect a minister, a father-figure, a Pope, or any such thing. We want to elect a person of decently, and, for the most part, we haven’t.
Moderator Note:
No one needs to be making generalizations about The Other Side.This is because the Trump apologists are obsessed with guy. Even though they say that we Skeptics are. But they have realized the truth in their obsession.Re: 32
In private, Trump said, in effect, that some of the women who fawned over the rich and famous were so servile that they’d let a man who was a star grab them by their groins.
I think what he said is crude, cynical and absolutely true. I don’t think it was an inappropriate comment to make, in private,to someone of the same sex. But I think he should have known better than to talk so freely to a member of the Bush family. On the other hand, 13 years ago he probably wasn’t still thinking, as he seemed to have been, years earlier than that on Oprah’s show, of ever running for President.
Locker room talk. Zzzz….
Re: 37
Locker room talk in the spirit of P.T. Barnum.
Moderator Note:
Please don't accuse fellow members of lying.That’s not what he said.
He said if you’re a star “they let you do it”. He didn’t mention anything about certain women that chase rich, famous men
, but thanks for the gaslighting.WAIT a minute, you were calling me stupid?? Now I’m all smiles!😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
The only thing ridiculous is your one note symphony. I’ll take results over piety every time. GW was great guy, and a disaster as president.
I didn’t quote him. But what I said, and what you wrote are equivalent, but thanks for tossing another straw man onto the pile.
That is pure speculation. And I’m sure with the millions of Dem operatives out there if it happened even once it would have been on the front page of the NY Times.
Think of how NBC held that back for October. Locker room talk of no import and they spiring it on him to swing the election. It’s just silly guy talk.
Moderator Note:
Your post would have been perfect without the "loser". I understand your frustration, but please don't call other members names, even if they have been rude towards you.Deal with it
, loser,while we tot up all the real accomplishments of our president.I never noticed you before, but: Your comments about me stink. Keep the FUNK outta my way.
Thank you, Hypatia. I am honored. Certain enemies enrich the soul. Have a good life.
Oh, no need to say goodbye…I prefer Au revoir…
Just for the record, I want to clear something up:
Calling a Ricochet member Stupid would seem to violate the Code of Conduct, which I have tried – not always successfully – to observe. So, whatever you -or whichever Monitor crossed out my words – I do not think you are stupid, nor did I even imply it. I think, rather, that putting Brilliant in quotation marks is a sign that I think you are the one who thinks very highly of herself. I, frankly, dislike that in a person.
As I say, this was just for the record. Au Revoir!
À la guillotine!
Um …. George …. you ‘liked’ a comment that said ‘p-ssy.’
Cut it out.
Having corrected your spelling, George, I admit I agree with you, it is.
I also agree with this as an appropriate action for you to take given your above violation. A week or two sounds about right.
I think it was the Merrimack,* not the Monitor. Who knew we’d be re-enacting the Battle of Hampton Roads on Ricochet? Personally, I was rooting for the Monitor.
*More accurately, the CSS Virginia.
He never said he did. He said he could because of his wealth and celebrity. And he is correct, there are a lot of women who would do anything; lie, cheat, steal, prostitute themselves to obtain fame and money. Be thankful if you are not one of them, don’t condemn President Trump for it.
I don’t understand this. Of course, no one is lionizing the few woman who would want to do this. It is disgusting. But why should we not think badly of a man – no matter who he is – who would go along with this degrading behavior?
It’s not a political priority or constraint with many right now. There are too may other corrupt and bad things going on.
Did you protest the Kennedys’ behavior? How about Clintons’ both male and female? How about Lydon Johnson? And now our FBI-CIA-DOJ are shown to be totally corrupt. Spy in the Trump campaign? Traitor Obama? But let’s do make a case for a human President, duly elected. That is so much more important. Doesn’t matter how much good he is doing for our country, his sexual activities prior to his election is much more interesting.
Ten years of 2% GDP is the destruction of human and financial capital. Making the nuns fund the pill etc. Bake the cake.
Keynesianism and cultural marxism.
This is about getting YOUR thug in office.
Oh, for Heaven’s sake:
Regarding the Kennedy’s, I am not quite that old. Close. I was nine when the President was shot. From what I now know, his actions were atrocious, and the news media should have never covered them up. Clinton was an immature pig all his life. Johnson was a disgusting bore. All of these questions are just an attempt at Defining Deviancy Down: The others, in our time, were bad, so let us excuse Trump! I vote No! Trump has done good things, a proposition I’ve never questioned. But why we are not allowed by some to say he is not a disgusting creep shall elude me until the day I close my eyes.
I think badly of a man who is
(a) either so emasculated that he never entertains such thoughts–or,
(b) who does entertain them but pretends to the outward purity of the whited sepulchre.
(–and, one more time, I will say:the word “creepy” should never be applied to heterosexual urges.)