She may have written the book that defined the “feminist resistance” to the Trump Administration, but “Handmaid’s Tale” author and feminist icon Margaret Atwood is now under attack by modern feminists — and all because she dared to suggest that the #MeToo movement embrace due process.
She’s now even being accused of waging her own “war on women,” for standing up in defense of a colleague who is facing allegations of sexual misconduct that could cost him his job at a Canadian university.
Earlier this week, Atwood penned an introspective article in the Globe and Mail titled, “Am I a Bad Feminist?” praising the “#MeToo movement for taking down longtime alleged sexual aggressors like Harvey Weinstein, and calling the movement “a massive wake up call” for powerful men who saw themselves as untouchable.
But Atwood went on to criticize #MeToo, claiming that vigilante justice — making claims about harassment and then demanding men be punished without trial, destroying careers and ending families — violated the accepted civilizational norm of affording due process, and turned radical feminists into tyrants.
“If the legal system is bypassed because it is seen as ineffectual, what will take its place? Who will be the new power brokers?” Atwood wrote, likening her support for her colleague as he faced allegations of sexual harassment to standing by the accused during the Salem Witch Trials.
“The public — including me — was left with the impression that this man was a violent serial rapist, and everyone was free to attack him publicly, since under the agreement he had signed, he couldn’t say anything to defend himself,” she added. “A fair-minded person would now withhold judgment as to guilt until the report and the evidence are available for us to see.”
The mere suggestion that feminists could not be trusted to be judge, jury, and executioner sent women’s rights activists into spasms of deep, unadulterated rage, and caused them to tear out at Atwood, questioning her feminist credentials and accusing her of “silencing women,” and “declaring war” on the new generation of intersectional, sex-policing progressives.
“If @MargaretAtwood would like to stop warring amongst women, she should stop declaring war against younger, less powerful women and start listening,” wrote one of her feminist detractors.
Others accused her of actually bringing about her own “Handmaid’s Tale.” “In today’s dystopian news: One of the most important feminist voices of our time s**ts on less powerful women to uphold the power of her powerful male friend,” they claimed.
Others suggested that Atwood was simply too blind to see what was happening to her friend. “‘Unsubstantiated’ does not mean innocent. It means there was not enough evidence to convict,” wrote one critic, apparently wholly unfamiliar with the innocent-until-proven guilty standard.
Atwood tried to defend herself by suggesting that the right to due process was a fundamental human right and in no way opposed to the rights of women to control their own bodies or to speak out against sexual aggression. But it was to no avail. Her own progeny had decided that she was the problem and not the solution.
The #MeToo movement has faced its share of issues in recent days, after a woman who had what can best be described as an “awful date” with Aziz Ansari appeared to make an attempt to end the actor’s career by publishing her “#MeToo” story in Babe Magazine. The development led some in high places to question whether #MeToo had gone too far and whether the movement should take more care in embracing every accusation of sexual impropriety.