A Letter to Washington Post Columnist Kate Cohen

A Letter to Washington Post Columnist Kate Cohen

Dear Ms. Cohen,

I respectfully ask that you take the time to read this admittedly long letter in its entirety and to thoughtfully consider what I say here.

As a lifelong reader of the Washington Post, I’ve long noticed that the Post has a clear bias in favor of women. This bias is self-evident: the Post has a gender columnist who only champions the female perspective, and in 2018 it published a repulsive article, Why Can’t We Hate Men? Unbelievably, despite an overwhelmingly negative response from thousands of posted comments, at year-end the article was still selected as one of The Post’s favorite op-eds of 2018!

I’m writing to Post columnists to get them to recognize and to correct this gender bias, this gender prejudice.

I’m sorry to say that your two recent Opinion pieces in the Post, about college guys committing sexual assaults and abolishing college fraternities, are additional examples of this prejudice.

Ms. Cohen, on your web page, you describe yourself as a “post holocaust, non-believing Jew”. Your first book told the stories of your Jewish relatives in Italy who suffered under the Nazis. As such, and with utmost respect, please allow me to ask you some possibly sensitive questions.

Before I do, please know that I’m a former contributing member of the Anti-Defamation League. Although I was brought up Christian, I joined the ADL because “it was the right thing to do against hate”. However, I stopped donating to the ADL and other similar organizations because of their silence to the anti-male prejudice that has for decades flowed so freely throughout the world.

An appalling example of this prejudice is the aforementioned “Why Can’t We Hate Men?” article.

Do you think that it was appropriate for an American newspaper whose slogan is “Democracy Dies in Darkness” to print it?

Do you, as a (non-believing) Jew whose own relatives suffered from hate, think that the article echoes anything from the ugly history of Europe in the middle of the 20^th century?

Do you think, as some of the article’s more than 3,300 (vastly negative) commenters responded, “just change ‘men’ to ‘Jews’”, is a fair summarization of this hateful article?

What about “the patriarchy” that the author references at the end? Do you think that in the same way that the Nazi’s use of a “Jewish conspiracy” aided in perpetuating hate and violence against Europe’s Jews, the use of the term “the patriarchy” aids in perpetuating hate and violence against men? Why else would the gender bigot who wrote this article include the hashtag #BecausePatriarchy in her ugly, #MeToo-inspired screed?

If you think the comparison is exaggerated, then how do you reconcile Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian-American feminist published in the Post who, in a 2019 radio interview, called for the use of “justifiable violence” against men and imagines “… a scenario in which we kill a certain number of men every week” to “dismantle the patriarchy”? Or ultra-radical Valerie Solanas, author of the SCUM Manifesto – the Society for Cutting Up Men – who called for not only destruction of the patriarchy, but also the complete elimination of the male sex?ⁱ These are not the only women calling for male genocide.ⁱⁱ

Isn’t this the same thing the Nazis wanted for Jews?

Do you think that the article’s author also hates your sons, now both young men? Or do you think she makes exceptions for the sons of feminist writers?

One of your articles tells us that both of your sons are attending college. Are you at all concerned that the article’s author, Suzanna Danuta Walters, is still allowed to teach and to serve as the director of women’s studies at Northeastern University?

Would you want your sons to be taught by this hate-filled woman? If so, what message are you sending them?

Are you at all concerned that they might be falsely accused of sexual assault while attending college? I would guess not, because you think they’re “some of the good guys”:

My own sons are, I think, some of the good guys. They’re heading back to college this fall with respect for sexual boundaries, a supply of condoms from our bathroom cabinet and the opinion that “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is “a little rapey.”ⁱⁱⁱ

Well guess what? Unless you insist that they wear shirts emblazoned with “This is What a Feminist’s Son Looks Like”,

YOUR SONS HAVE THE SAME CHANCES OF BEING FALSELY ACCUSED OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AS ANY OTHER YOUNG MAN ON CAMPUS AND BEING “GOOD GUYS” WON’T HELP THEM.

How do I know? Because “sending them off with a supply of condoms” means that they will, with your presumed blessing, likely have sex with women (unless of course they’re gay), and ANY woman who has sex with one of your sons may later regret it and falsely accuse him of rape, the next day, the next month or even years later.^iv

Just like the three young men from the Duke University lacrosse team who in 2006 were falsely accused of rape by stripper Crystal Gail Mangum. You may recall that Mangum was later convicted of the 2nd degree murder of her boyfriend.

Or like the members of the University of Virginia fraternity who in Rolling Stone’s infamous 2014 article A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA, were accused of a horrifying gang rape. The article was ultimately debunked and the accuser, UVA student Jackie Coakley, was eventually forced to admit that she made up the entire story.

Don’t you think that the parents of these young men would also have described their sons as “some of the good guys”?

And then there are the hundreds or perhaps thousands of students – almost all males – who have been accused of rape or sexual assault under the Kafkaesque guidelines issued by the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) “Dear Colleague Letter” (DCL) issued in April of 2011.

I have little doubt that you’re aware that this letter vastly changed and undermined the due process rights of students – 98% male ^v – who have been accused of sexual assault at the nation’s colleges and universities. Among other changes, this “guidance” ^vi:

• required colleges to use a “preponderance of evidence” standard (> 50% certainty of guilt) instead of “beyond a reasonable doubt” that is the standard for all criminal proceedings
• violated the constitutionally-specified prohibition against double jeopardy by allowing both sides – including the accuser – to appeal a sexual misconduct decision, subjecting the accused to a theoretically-unlimited number of additional hearings
• eliminated the accused’s right to legal counsel
• severely limited cross examination (as being “too stressful” for the accuser)
• bypassed rules of evidence, obviating the guarantee that all evidence – even exculpatory evidence – would be shared with both parties; however, hearsay and other irrelevant “evidence” are allowed
• didn’t require placing the parties under oath, leaving consequences for lying generally nonexistent
• didn’t require schools to record hearings or explain how they came to final decisions.^vii

(Although these changes were rescinded in 2017 by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, it appears that DOE may reinstitute them as Catherine Lhamon – who as head of DOE’s OCR oversaw the abuse of students accused of sexual assault – was reappointed to again head the OCR in October.)

Ms. Cohen, God forbid, if one of your sons were accused of rape, would you want him to face such an unfair Title IX process? If YOU were ever arrested for a crime, wouldn’t you be alarmed if these same unjust standards were used in YOUR trial?

Can you not see that this denial of male students’ civil rights is morally comparable to the same denial of Jews’ civil rights in the 1930’s, before the Holocaust?

Finally, I also know that your own sons are at risk of being falsely accused of sexual assault because writers like you continue, through biased, one-sided articles, to contribute to a provably false^viii message about the prevalence of sexual assault at the nation’s colleges and universities, thus providing fertile ground for an often crazy, circus-like atmosphere of false accusations against many innocent young men. (Remember Columbia University’s “mattress girl” Emma Sulkowicz, who dragged a mattress around Columbia University, even after the accused was exonerated by the school? Perhaps “insane” would be a better description?)

Considered alone, your two articles might not seem to cause any untoward danger to men; they are but two short essays that are only “about the safety of women at college campuses”, right?

Wrong.

Monstrously wrong.

Your articles are only two of many, many thousands of similarly biased, one-sided, anti-male articles written and published over the past four or five decades in the world’s media that collectively can only be considered “gender propaganda”, propaganda that adheres to the description given in 1933 by Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Germany Minister of Propaganda:

“The best propaganda is that which, as it were, works invisibly, penetrates the whole of life without the public having any knowledge of the propagandistic initiative.” ^ix

Isn’t the Post publishing the “Why Can’t We Hate Men?” article some 85 years after Goebbels spoke the above words proof that feminist-inspired prejudice has succeeded, even beyond Goebbels’ wildest dreams, in spreading hate, not against Jews, but this time against men, without the public – or the Washington Post itself – even aware of feminists’ decades-long propagandistic initiative?

And ironically publishing it under a pithy platitude, “Democracy Dies in Darkness”!

Isn’t it amazing that, even after those horrible cases of false rape accusations at Duke and UVA, an informed, well-educated woman – and the mother of two sons – would still write articles years later that are animated by the same anti-male gender prejudice as shown at Duke and UVA?

What’s equally amazing is that you seem to be completely unaware of their underlying feminist propagandistic purpose. How else can one explain how the mother of two sons would write such biased and one-sided articles?

Your articles share four telltale characteristics of propaganda also found in thousands of similar feminism-inspired articles written over the past 40-plus years:

1. Identify one enemy for special vilification:

In your two articles, the “one enemy” – even if you don’t realize it – is male college students.

In the larger context the enemy is males, both men and boys, who have been vilified for decades, almost always without comment or outcry. “#killallmen”, “Male chauvinist pig”, “toxic masculinity”, “mansplaining”, “manspreading”, images of battered wives with no mention of equal numbers of battered husbands are just a few examples. It’s gotten so bad that even young boys are considered fair game: this past March a school in Australia vilified boys by making them apologize to girls for being male.

2. Appeal to the emotions:

Your articles leverage fears about a supposed atmosphere of campus sexual assault that is hugely exaggerated by feminist statistics. At best, these statistics are provably a calculated misrepresentation of basic facts^x; at worst, they are a bald-faced lie, a gender-partisan generated fiction that proves the adage that “figures don’t lie, but liars figure”.

For example, you wrote that “… more than an estimated quarter [25%] of all undergraduate women will experience nonconsensual sexual contact while in college.” A frightful statistic indeed.

However, other sources – notably President Obama and Joe Biden – have repeatedly cited a different statistic, 1 in 5 (20%) estimate. So, which is it? This not-insignificant difference is a strong indicator that “the numbers are being fudged”.

However, it appears that female students who are the alleged victims aren’t really frightened by the statistics. Either of them.

Not if you consider the way that they behave.

If female students were truly worried about becoming a “1-in-whatever-feminists-claim-it-is” statistic, then why do so many of them drink to excess, where both their common sense and their aversion to sex diminish with each drink?

If female students were truly worried about becoming rape victims of male students, why in the world would they ever agree to live in co-ed dorms?

If female students really believe that a campus rape culture exists, then why do they continue to dress so provocatively? (And before asserting the “blaming the victim” defense, please view the video The Politics of Cleavage, by men’s rights activist Bettina Arndt. At least one woman hasn’t totally lost her mind!)

And if female students were truly worried about being raped by male students, why would they even associate—let alone go out on dates—with these monstrous males at all?

Because, deep down, both they and feminists know the campus rape culture is a lie. It is false rape accusations writ large.

In the larger context, thousands of articles like yours prey both on females’ emotional fears of rape and violence as well as of males’ emotional instinct to protect women and girls. (Remember the Titanic?) These emotional fears are one reason why feminists have lied about domestic violence being about “men beating up women” without admitting to the fact that at least 50% of domestic violence is perpetuated by women. (A second reason is the massive funding for DV programs.)

If you don’t believe that women perpetuate at least 50% of DV, please take the time to read a law review article Disabusing the Definition of Domestic Violence: How Women Batter Men and the Role of the Feminist State (written by a woman), or my article about the hypocrisy of the #MeToo movement, particularly the section on “Women’s Contribution to Domestic Violence”.

Or you could just ask Johnny Depp.

3. Employ constant repetition of just a few ideas, using stereotyped phrases:

“The patriarchy”, “domestic violence”, “rape culture”, and “gender wage gap” are all stereotyped – i.e., “prejudiced” – phrases that have been blindly repeated, ad nauseum, in news segments and articles just like yours with little regard for the facts, the truth, or their underlying anti-male bigotry.

4. Put forth only one side of the argument:

Your article about abolishing college fraternities is a classic example. Why did you focus only on male fraternities? Why didn’t you also consider female sororities? A few simple Google searches^xi would have provided plenty of proof that sororities should have been included in your analysis. That you focused only on fraternities is also indicative of your own misandry – hatred of men.

In the larger context, how many times has the Post published articles that examined only one side of the scourge of domestic violence without telling the truth about women’s violence against men? In the past 40 years I’ve only seen two that specifically exposed this ugly truth.

Or how often has the Post published articles or commentary that affirmed the alleged gender wage gap and yet failed to report^xii on a 2009 U.S. Department of Labor report, An Analysis of the Reasons for the Disparity in Wages Between Men and Women – Final Report which concluded, “… the raw wage gap [between men and women] continues to be used in misleading ways [emphasis added] to advance public policy agendas without fully explaining the reasons behind the gap.”

(Isn’t the phrase “used in misleading ways” just a polite way of saying “they’re lying”?) ^xiii

These four telltale characteristics, or principles, of propaganda just described are straight from the pages of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf!

As documented in a 2012 study, Propaganda and Persuasion,

Throughout the Nazi period, Hitler and Goebbels stuck rigidly to these principles, and the world witnessed a mature, cultured people—the Germans—accepting one of the most onerous dictatorships in history, which precipitated a prolonged war and eventually instituted as policy the most heinous of all crimes, genocide. – page 240

Ms. Cohen, I once read that “history repeats itself, only not exactly”. From what I’ve described in this letter, wouldn’t you agree, particularly as a Jewish woman, that there are parallels between what the Nazis did and what feminists and their intelligent, but unwitting accomplices – including both you and the Washington Post – have been doing for years?

I can only hope that you’ve read this far. If so, I thank you. I pray that I’ve opened your mind to the dark turn that feminism took a long time ago.

If I have, please help me to convince reporters, columnists, and management at the Post that they need to reconsider their entire coverage of gender-related issues to eliminate their hateful, feminist-inspired, anti-male gender bias.

Do it for the same reason that I once contributed to the ADL: “it’s the right thing to do against hate”.

Do it in memory of the men of the Titanic, who willingly gave up their lives so women and children could live; do it for the more than one million American men^xiv who have died in wars protecting us at home; do it for the 4,140 male 9/11 first responders (85% of total)^xv who died that day; do it for the thousands of nameless men who are injured or killed on the job every year to support their families – 94% of workplace fatalities. Finally, do it for the tens of millions of men who, despite being assailed by feminist hate for decades, continue to support, care for, and love women.

But most of all, do it for your sons.

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