Six MeToo Lessons in 2018

The MeToo stories of the last year have convinced me of many things.

1. Most people judge men by whether they gain the approval of women. Both men and women place great value on getting the approval of women.

For example, do you ever hear some man recite some ridiculous feminist opinion? No it is not really his opinion. He has just been trained like a dog to seek the approval of women.

Not everyone, of course. Many alpha men, like Donald Trump, seem utterly indifferent to the approval of women.

2. Many will accuse a man of autism or possibly being a criminal predator if a interaction with a woman is botched.

Autism is widely described as a communication disability. But even when a man clearly and unambiguous declares someone about himself, and a woman misunderstands him, people will say that there must have been something wrong with the man that he did not make himself understood.

No, most of the time it is the woman with the communication problem.

3. Most people do not seem to understand that flirting is inherently ambiguous. If done right, you cannot be sure of the intentions of whoever is flirting.

Often a man will be accused of attempting a seduction just because he made a flirting comment.

To see how absurd this is, a woman wearing lipstick is a form of flirting. The main purpose of lipstick is for a woman to advertise her sexual availability. But women also wear lipstick when they are not looking for a sexual encounter.

4. Few believe in "innocent until proven guilty". In today's MeToo stories, no man gets the benefit of the doubt. If a story sounds like it could have happened, then the man is guilty until proven innocent.

5. You cannot resolve a dispute by listening to one side of the story. Alan Greenspan likes to make this point. A criminal indictment often sounds very convincing, until you hear the alibi or the proof that someone else committed the crime.

6. MeToo complaints will accelerate as long as women can get away with bogus accusations. It is analogous to spammer sending spam as long as it is cheap and easy. You cannot expect it to stop just because it is immoral or damaging. It can only be stopped by active measures to shut it down.

For another analogy, there is an old joke: "Why does a dog lick his testicles? Because he can." It is the same with women. They make MeToo accusations because they can.