Sexual harassment is everywhere!

We are in the middle of a sexual harassment tsunami.  All over the place well-known producers, directors, actors and politicians are being accused of doing things that range from creepy to, well, really creepy, either to members of the opposite sex or, in some cases, members of the same sex. 

It is easy to believe these allegations when they are made against someone who looks like every wanted poster for a child molester ever made (Harvey Weinstein), or there is confirmatory evidence (Matt Lauer and his door that secretly locked), or are confirmed by photographic evidence (Al Franken).  With all these women coming forward under #metoo, what is next?

The next phase is inevitable: women with an axe to grind will start making false accusation against innocent people and hope to ride the coattails of outrage that accompany these revelations.  With all these seemingly credible accusations being made, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that we do live in a nation where the cornerstone of our legal system is innocent until proven guilty.  This is extremely inconvenient in the inevitable situation of “He said/She said.”

People tend to believe what they want to believe.  If you believe that all Hollywood producers have casting couches in their offices, then a wave of accusations vindicates your beliefs.  But the fact that evidence supports your pre-existing belief system does not make it more credible.  Creating a mentality where every woman’s accusation is accepted by a knee-jerk reaction as fact does not get to the truth.

Remember the security guard at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 who found a bomb, and was then accused of planting the bomb?  There was never any evidence against him, but people thought the narrative would make a good movie-of-the-week and so tended to believe the story, even though it was fictional.  We are so accustomed to seeing fictional stories in movies and on TV that we start to evaluate all stories not by their plausibility but by whether the story is entertaining.

To take another example, remember the McMartin pre-school case in the 1980’s, when people were convinced that there was a vast underground conspiracy of Satan worshippers in America, and these cults were systematically abducting very young children and subjecting them to horrific rituals?  People believed it even though it made no sense and there was no evidence, just because it was an entertaining, if disturbing, story.  The folks that ran the McMartin pre-school who were accused of being the ringleaders of these cults were exonerated, but only after a lengthy trial and even then, many people probably dismissed the not guilty verdict as a product of the Devil’s handiwork.

Thus far, the accusations of sexual harassment (and worse) that have been made have at least had the appearance of credibility, and few accusers have categorically denied the allegations.  But at some point (it may already have happened) someone is going to make a false accusation, and when that time comes it is important that the accused be given every o0pportunity to respond, including the presumption of innocence.

You can look at the tidal wave of disclosures about sexual harassment as evidence of just how bad the problem has been in Hollywood and in politics, but at some point, the insatiable maw that is the internet and the news industry will demand more victims, and someone out there will be only too happy to offer up some more examples of male oppression, even if they have to fabricate them.  When that happens, I hope that people can stop surfing the wave of accusations and start to evaluate these claims with a critical eye and a little bit of reason.