Abhijeet Shrivastava, Week 8

Zoe Greenberg, “What Happens to #MeToo When a Feminist Is the Accused?”

Avital Ronell, a world-renowned female professor at New York University, also called one of the few “philosopher-stars of this world by a colleague, was found responsible for having sexually harassed a male student, Nimrod Reitman. This was confirmed by the “Title IX Final Report” containing evidence of this harassment spanning three years, including e-mails with appalling language.

Safe to say: the global response by feminists when “one of their own behaved badly” is disconcerting, to say the least, in that it highlights certain prejudices within #MeToo itself – or at least a considerable part of the proponents of the movement.

Upon her suspension, fellow students and Professors wrote in defence of Professor Ronell, noting the “dignity rightly deserved by someone of her international standing and reputation”. Ronell, in fact, wrote to NYU, denying any harassment, and complicating the situation further by claiming that her advances were reciprocated by Mr Reitman, shielding her criminality by highlighting that she was a lesbian and Reitman a gay man to hint that she had no “motive”.

To this day, no definitive finding on his complaint has been issued. Moreover, many students continue to believe that this is an attempt to pervert the essence of feminism as if stabbing it in the back by slandering one of its authorities. This incident highlights that even within #MeToo, privilege and social capital continue to thrive, not only preserving but also reinforcing injustice in different forms. #MeToo was meant to usher an era where one’s repute and standing does not presuppose absolute innocence, that there ought to be a balance between the presumption of innocence for an alleged harasser and the presumption of belief in survivors’ words.

To suggest that feminism, at least in such an incomplete form,  can in such situations become a part of pre-fixed beliefs that disallow accountability, due process and justice in cases where the “roles are reversed from the norm” is no exaggeration. It is, in fact, a conversation needed to be had, to keep the credibility and values of #MeToo alive.