#MeToo ‘trial by Twitter’ still making headlines

THE #MeToo movement is too focused on isolated incidents of male misconduct and must do more than simply ‘collect scalps,’ the historian Mary Beard has said. And I can’t help agreeing with her.

The pendulum is swinging, but I suspect it could swing too far the other way thanks to a hefty push from the likes of Twitter.

Without due care, #MeToo could become #Allmenarerapists which couldn’t be further from the truth. This is a serious subject that’s at risk of tipping into trial by Twitter – a torch-carrying, pitchfork-wielding witch hunt.

Why not concentrate instead on something really meaningful in the interests of protecting women rather than the: ‘He may have touched my knee, but it was difficult to tell, it might have been the tablecloth, but I’m still a victim’ claims that make up much of what we’ve seen so far?  

From another perspective, I don’t quite understand why being a hostess at the Presidents Club or a Formula One grid girl, for instance, is demeaning, but a photo of a female celebrity posing naked is ‘empowering.’ 

Admittedly, for decades, women were routinely groped in the workplace, but why carry on waging a war against men? 

Surely a better solution is to work with them to help them understand what’s going on and how best to deal with this. Otherwise aren’t we simply storing up resentment from men when we just single out their bad behaviour? Surely none of us want young boys to grow up in a world where men are scared of putting a foot wrong and no allowance made for tactless mistakes? We shouldn’t be putting all behaviours in the same bucket.

Finally, what about the Beast from the East? The snow that caused road chaos, cancelled trains, closed schools. Ridiculous! It’s not like the UK’s never had snow in February/March before, but the media nonetheless went into full disaster-predicting mode. But of course it’s all caused by global warming, or Brexit. Not so much Beast from the East, more like Apocalypse Snow or Hysteria from Siberia… 

Nora Johnson’s psychological crime thrillers ‘The Girl in the Red Dress,’ ‘No Way Back,’ ‘Landscape of Lies,’ ‘Retribution,’ ‘Soul Stealer,’ ‘The De Clerambault Code’  (www.no ra-johnson.net) available from Amazon in paperback/eBook (€0.99;£0.99) and iBookstore. All profits to Costa del Sol Cudeca cancer charity.