#MeToo men want to be forgiven, but what of the careers of their casualties?
Yes, they did something wrong. But the punishment is out of proportion. They have apologised, they have promised to change. Isn’t it time we forgave some of the men brought down by #MeToo?
It’s an important question – one that anyone interested in justice should ask. Lately, the rate of asking has picked up pace. In an interview with Piers Morgan last week, Kevin Spacey sobbed at the treatment he had suffered, even as... more#MeToo men want to be forgiven, but what of the careers of their casualties?
Yes, they did something wrong. But the punishment is out of proportion. They have apologised, they have promised to change. Isn’t it time we forgave some of the men brought down by #MeToo?
It’s an important question – one that anyone interested in justice should ask. Lately, the rate of asking has picked up pace. In an interview with Piers Morgan last week, Kevin Spacey sobbed at the treatment he had suffered, even as he conceded that his accusers – one or two of them – had been telling the truth.
“There has been overreach by the media… but by your own admission, your behaviour was extremely inappropriate,” Morgan summarises, towards the end of the segment. “Sometimes it was non-consensual.”
“I am not going to behave that way [again],” replies Spacey, “and now we are at a place where: OK, what next? I am trying to seek a path to redemption.”
A similar remark appeared elsewhere last week – this time by a feminist writer in the New York Times – after the death of Morgan Spurlock, another man cancelled by #MeToo after he admitted harassing a colleague. “I can’t shake the feeling that nearly seven years after MeToo,” she writes, “we still haven’t found a way for men who want to make amends to do so meaningfully.”
It is troubling to see people ostracised, brutally and without due process, and with seemingly no hope of salvation. No fairminded person wants to live in a world like this. But as we ask whether perfect justice has been served when it comes to #MeToo’s powerful men, we should consider if we are missing part of the narrative. We used to ostracise their victims.
