A Letter to Two Washington Post Columnists About a Recent Article About #MeToo
Dear Mr. Farhi and Ms. Fetters Maloy,
I respectfully ask that you take the time to read this letter in its entirety and to thoughtfully consider what I say here.
I’m a proud lifelong reader of The Washington Post who has long noticed the paper’s gender bias, most notably its imbalanced coverage of domestic violence
But my pride in the Post turned to quiet outrage in 2018 by the publication of two disgraceful, bigoted articles:
- Why can’t we hate men?, a #MeToo inspired rant by the director of women’s studies at a major American University, who had the gall to openly and shamelessly express a Nazi-like hatred for men in a major American newspaper:
- Amber Heard’s infamous op-ed that both embarrassed the Post and ultimately cost Heard over $10 million:
In response, I’ve been sending letters to Post columnists who write articles that perpetuate the same biased, one-sided depiction about gender issues as these two articles.
Your recent article titled Five years on, what happened to the men of #MeToo? is an example of this bias. Like almost all other Post coverage of #MeToo, it only provides a single side of the story.
Please don’t misunderstand. I believe that #MeToo originally had a valid point. And I don’t deny that some men can behave appallingly. But as I wrote in an article in 2020;
#MeToo has morphed from a movement for the expression of legitimate complaints by women about the sexual misbehavior of some men into a two-faced juggernaut that allows any man to be accused, tried, and sentenced in the court of public opinion, hounded out of his job, and made a social pariah without a shred of due process, often by anonymous accusers.”
Mr. Farhi, you may scoff, but as a man you could be accused of sexual misbehavior and hounded out of your job at the Post. Your actual guilt or innocence would be irrelevant. Only that you’ve been accused.
Don’t believe it? Then consider the case of another former Post writer, Mike Tunison, who in 2017 was included on Shitty Media Men, an online list that collected anonymous, unvetted allegations of sexual misconduct and assault against approximately 70 men who worked in media.
Someone anonymously added Mr. Tunison to the list, accusing him of “harassment,” “stalking” and “physical intimidation”. Prior to this, Mr. Tunison was a successful freelance writer who wrote for the Post and had a book published by HarperCollins. After his inclusion in the list, his writing work dried up and many friends deserted him. He became suicidal, as he described in an online post, Hi, I’m on the Shitty Media Men list, but maybe you already knew that.
That your article is one sided is self-evident as it only discusses men who have been accused of sexual misbehavior, completely ignoring women’s equally appalling misbehavior. As my article on #MeToo points out,
“…#MeToo fails to recognize women’s own corresponding bad sexual behavior or of the female contribution to men’s sexual misconduct.”
Why didn’t your article discuss the misbehavior of some of the female #MeToo accusers?
Like Asia Argento, who accused Harvey Weinstein of performing oral sex on her against her will.
Argento, even while spreading the #MeToo gospel to the world, paid nearly $400,000 to child actor Jimmy Bennett, who claimed Argento sexually assaulted him in 2013 when he was 17 and she was 37. Unsurprisingly, Argento called the underage victim a liar. One article pointed out Argento’s hypocrisy:
“Imagine, please, that the accuser was a woman [who] was treated the way that Asia Argento, the strident Joan of Arc of the #MeToo movement, was treating [the male] actor who, at the age of 7, had played her son. We would have hordes of ladies in black dresses and linked arms singing some random song from Lilith Fair.”
Asia Argento and Her Victim (image from CNN)
For more information about the “other side” of #MeToo, may I suggest that you read my entire online article, #MeToo, Thy Name is Hypocrisy?
And then consider writing another article that includes this other side.
Sincerely,
Stephen Bond
Other Post columnists to whom I’ve previously sent letters about their own gender-biased columns have been separately cc’d this letter:
- Monica Hesse: as the Post’s gender columnist, when will you do the right thing and speak out against feminist lies and your paper’s one-sided gender bias?
- Karla Miller, Work Advice Columnist: wrote two articles about the gender wage gap
- Janay Kingsberry, Multiplatform editor for “The Lily” web site: wrote article about “dissatisfied U.S. women”
- Kate Cohen, “Contributing columnist”: wrote two articles about college men
- Christine Emba, Columnist: wrote an article about “condom stealthing”
- Julianne McShane, “Gender & Inequity journalist”: wrote two articles on the gender pay gap
- Miriam Berger, “Reporter covering Middle East, Foreign Affairs”: wrote two articles about domestic violence
- Candace Buckner, Sports reporter: wrote biased article on “Men Behaving Badly”
- Erik Wemple, wrote a column about the Amber Heard fiasco
