Here we go again. Some women at Harvard, wishing to challenge the establishment within the institution to prove they are totally woke when it comes to feminist issues, have demanded a pound of flesh for the horrifying, terrible, rotten, monstrous acts of a certain professor John Comaroff.
In the interview, she recalled how Dr. Comaroff launched into a harangue about how she could be subjected to “corrective rape,” or even killed, if she were seen in a lesbian relationship in certain parts of Africa. But he said it with “a tone of enjoyment,” Ms. Kilburn said, adding, “This was not normal office hours advice.”
This was Dr. Comaroff advising a graduate student that traveling through Africa with a same-sex partner could be dangerous.
Did you catch it? Do I have to call attention to the fact that this is something he said. These are words. And her judgement of his tone: it was not satisfactory, to her. It was a “tone of enjoyment”.
So the grand inquisitors of the feminist movement sprung into action, recruited some fellow-travelers who don’t appear to have anything more substantial to add to the story, and attacked Professor Comaroff and sued Harvard University for not having burned him at the stake long ago.
A group of 38 colleagues at Harvard wrote a letter defending him. Then they retracted it. Apparently they discovered that Professor Comaroff, attacked by a female student, reacted the way most of us do when attacked unfairly: he defended himself. He refused to favor this student with his approval and blessings. He gave his opinion of this student’s attack on him to others. (In fairness, read this for a relatively balanced view. “Balanced” if you believe that the student did not have the option of telling him to get lost and going somewhere else. But then, she claims, she would have been disadvantaged by not being able to expect favorable treatment from a professor she attacked for being abusive to her because he seemed to enjoy warning her about the social policy and attitudes of certain African nations.)
Of course his advice was stupid and unpleasant. Of course he was also probably right. And of course he probably enjoyed passing that information along to the lesbian student, Lilian Kilburn, who was convinced that he was hitting on her. Maybe he was. She’s not particularly attractive, but who knows. Either way, as I glided past the salacious headlines and teasers about this story I kept waiting for the part that described the “harassment”. Was it– yes it was: he kissed her on the lips. Maybe. He says he didn’t. She says he did. Suspend the fucker! Cancel him! He must pay for his outrageous iniquities.
I’m not going to go into any more detail on this one– that’s all there is. There is no real groping or rape or sodomy or slapping or whatever it is that we used to call “sexual” abuse. Just a number of female students who clearly don’t like Professor Comaroff, who resent the fact that he defended himself when attacked, and, yes, of course it isn’t about the money and of course they are after the money. Yes indeed: these martyrs are suing Harvard University for not protecting them from Professor Comaroff’s lips and words.
Fuck this. This is indefensible. This does not evoke a sense of women’s empowerment and equality and intellectual stature. It evokes a conviction that these women are weak, petty, vindictive, and insecure. How do they prove that they really are better and smarter and more virtuous than those men at Harvard who actually run things? Sue them. It’s better than bringing down the governor. It’s even better than accusing them of being complicit in a murder, like Joyce Carol Oates did.
I’m not even going to make sure you know all about my long-standing beliefs or views on women’s rights and equality as if I somehow have to prove that seeing bullshit for what it is has to be excused in some way. This IS bullshit. It is stupid. It discredits feminism– and the sustained drumbeat of these cases is doing more damage to it than most women would believe.
And they don’t know about it because it’s something sensible, smart, educated, enlightened men talk about when there are no women in the room.
Now, be careful. If you comment about the rather butch appearance of these women, you too could be cancelled. I’m going to comment anyway because if the tone of voice of Professor Comaroff is fair game (yes, that is basis of part of their complaint) then I must insist that the physical appearance of these three women is also fair game.
It’s all subjective judgement that in one case become the axis of a million-dollar lawsuit and in another case my disrespectful opinion of what I think is really happening here.