A University of Michigan law professor and Harvard University visiting professor alleges that the #MeToo movement wouldn’t have happened if Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 presidential election. The professor also suggested that when it came to Bill Clinton, many people were concerned with the “right use” of sexual harassment allegations against him “for political gain.”
Law professor Catharine MacKinnon delivered a speech at a #MeToo conference last semester at UC Berkeley, in which she suggested that “indifference to reports of sexual abuse” is in part how Donald Trump got elected president in 2016, which in turn ended up fueling the #MeToo movement.
“Now, my point here is two things,” said professor MacKinnon, “One, if Hillary Clinton had been elected #MeToo would not have occurred and, two — we are the backlash.”
MacKinnon may actually have a point in claiming that the #MeToo movement never would have existed if Hillary Clinton had been elected president, given that feminists today appear to engage in selective outrage, and would likely have little to no interest in creating a movement seemingly against sexual assault unless it served a leftist political agenda.
Modern-day feminists, for example, did not even appear to consider creating a #MeToo movement in response to Hillary Clinton, who has faced multiple allegations of enabling her husband Bill Clinton’s sexual assaults.
In fact, when MacKinnon did mention sexual harassment claims against Bill Clinton, she referred to them as “a morality crusade,” and suggested that many people were concerned with the “right use” of the allegations made against the former president “for political gain.”
“Claims of sexual harassment — by President Bill Clinton had previously identified the issue of sexual harassment for many people with the right use of it for political gain. That is, it made it into a morality crusade rather than a matter of coercion and exploitation,” said the law professor, who added that President Trump has changed the way in which people view reports of sexual assault.
MacKinnon then went on by claiming that Bill Clinton, on the other hand, was a “respected president” who American citizens had “actually elected.”
“Instead of interfering with a respected president, try to remember this, desired policies and leadership, somebody — the American people actually elected — exposing these violations in one’s own life became a means of resisting the forces of darkness,” affirmed the law professor.
“Misogyny, racism, fascism, lies, stupidity, you name it,” added MacKinnon.
Later, the law professor appeared to call the presumption of innocence into question by bringing up the infamous Kavanaugh witch trial and uncritically speaking about Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations, referring to the accuser’s uncorroborated evidence as “remembered facts” which had been shut down by Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s “resume.”
“In some ways, it’s even worse to be believed and to have what he did not count. It just means you don’t matter,” said MacKinnon, “Now, this precise choreography was retraced in the hearing on Judge Kavanaugh in his Supreme Court confirmation. We had Dr. Christine Blasey Ford providing remembered facts of a sexual attack by him.”
“When questioned on those facts, Judge Kavanaugh repeatedly provided his resume. I matter. Okay?” continued the law professor, “These exact dynamics of inequality are what drive the system of sexual politics, in which the more power a man has the more sexual access he can get away with compelling.”
MacKinnon then suggested that “domestic laws of rape need to be based on coercion,” rather than consent.
“But reconfigure the definitions of force to extend beyond physical force,” added MacKinnon, “to encompass all the forms of inequality that make rape possible, including race, class and poverty, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability big time, immigration status, huge. It is what gets people the drop on someone.”
“Anytime we say what he did — it will be called defamatory. Anytime anyone is incapable of seeing women as anything other than a sexual object we will have the Pence effect,” concluded the law professor in her bizarre speech, “Yes, they intend to keep their sexual access to us. Yes, they are already entrenched in power and established institutions and doctrines to support them.”
Professor MacKinnon has recently taught courses on “Sex Equality” and “Sexual Harassment in Law and Society” at the University of Michigan.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler at @alana, and on Instagram.
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