I've blogged about this controversy a few times in the past. That's why I'm blogging the settlement, the terms of which are not disclosed. Well, that and the quote in the post title, which is an eloquent counterpoint to the law of defamation.
March 5, 2023
"I only wanted to create a place for women to share their stories of harassment and assault without being needlessly discredited or judged."
Said Moira Donegan, quoted in "Writer on ‘Sh–ty Media Men’ list settles defamation suit with catalog creator" (NY Post).
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Their genre is ritual tales affirming the place of women.
"Without any opportunity for the men accused to give their side of the story," is what she meant to say.
Moira Donegan is worthless trash.
The important thing is that her intent was pure. Right?
So first; I think this entire series of blog posts by Althouse has been very valuable blogging. I actually think Althouse's light touch, on judging the merits of any of the actions (pro or con on the listing) is quite nice, and opens the conversation.
I went back through all of the blog posts, looking for any editorializing by Althouse on the subject, and found none that I could discern.
But Althouse has two blog-tags -- "lawsuits I hope will fail" and "lawsuits I hope will succeed" -- neither of which were ever applied to this subject. It is hard for me to imagine that cruel neutrality extends this far into a topic of plain legal interest to Althouse after she blogged the whole Me Too movement from its earliest pre-incarnation. I'm not prejudging her view. There could be a variety of nuanced views on defamation causes of action versus legitimate interests which touch on the nature sex assault victimhood, First Amendment rights for online citizen journalists, and bloggers, and the whole nature of what is journalism in that context.
Sorry, Althouse, to have tried to find some nuance here as opposed to your MAGA commenters' one-line assaults as seen immediately above. But I do value your legal analysis even when I disagree with it.
"I only wanted ..." is what people say when things go terribly wrong for them. I understand the idea of a "safe space," but how well does that go along with the demands for diversity and inclusion? It's now hard to sort out whether exclusive groups of like-minded people are necessary or dangerous. "I only wanted to create a place for people who think the same to share stories that confirm what they already believe" does sound a lot like today's media echo chamber, though.
Her mistake was outing the high status men.
Feminists are only supposed to shit on white men generally and working/middle class men. Real feminists know their place and actually enjoy they attention and abuse they receive from the high status male predators.
She tried to pretend there were actual principles involved and it wasn't just a tribal power play.
What about the shitty politicians who have a taxpayer funded settlement funds to get out of sexual harassment cases that they refuse to TELL us about..and WE get to pay for it??
Chuck,
Do you understand that you are being allowed to beclown yourself in these threads? Are you really this dense?
Well, if you can't support with evidence the defamation of the people you name, you deserve to lose the lawsuit. My problem is with the double standards involved, though. The NYTimes would win this lawsuit in a dismissal, but Ms. Donegan has to settle or lose at trial. Either defamation is defamation and not allowed, or it should be the right of everyone to defame other people- one set of rules for all.
No woman must be made to feel bad about, or responsible for, anything, ever.
Even while she is destroying a man by lying about him sexual harassing her.
An "éloquent counterpoint to the law of defamation"? I am not sure. The list acted as a therapy session. But those things are supposed to be private. And therapy allows people to express themselves spontaneously if not accurately. The law of defamation allows true statements and/or opinions, but not falsehoods stated as fact, to be published. The publication of the list was reckless in that it had no assurance for truth and was only useful to the providers if it was not regarded as mere opinion. So the counterpoint is that there is no law, only a emotionally satisfying public scrum?
With a single post Chuck again illustrates why he was banned lo these many months and demonstrates the imprudence associated with his commentary again being accepted on this blog.
… which is an eloquent counterpoint to the law of defamation.
Yup, just those pesky laws getting in the way of social justice. Women should have a right to spread anonymous lies about men they don’t like. How about when we get rid of the laws surrounding defamation we get rid of the laws surrounding rape and murder while we’re at it?
The quote from Donnegan should get a "civility bullshit" tag.
wendybar said...
What about the shitty politicians who have a taxpayer funded settlement funds to get out of sexual harassment cases that they refuse to TELL us about..and WE get to pay for it??
Well this again just shows what Feminism has become.
They don't mind the high status male predation upon them.
In fact they get payed for it. And you noticed that they are really just hookers who get paid by a taxpayer credit card all congressman seem to get.
They get sexed up by high status males.
They get money.
They get to be a victim even though they have to keep quiet about it.
It is all winning for women who by and large have daddy issues and don't know how to have a healthy relationship with a man.
And now you see another reason they attack the institutions of fatherhood and marriage.
Or, as Shakespeare put it:
”But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him And makes me poor indeed.”
Though fairness compels me to acknowledge that Shakespeare puts this speech in the mouth of Iago, one of his vilest villains.
Lurker21 said...
"I only wanted ..." is what people say when things go terribly wrong for them."
A few weeks ago some junkie looking chic used that exact phrase when trying to deflect blame from herself for t-boning some poor old guy in a jeep in a Walmart parking lot. "I was only trying to turn down there!"
Achilles, there is truth to what you say. When the Harvey Weinstein story broke and his depravities on display, the women who resisted or objected had their careers in ruins, mostly never getting started at all. But there were plenty of women who played the game. How many stars are there today because they indulged Weinstein?
"....without being needlessly judged".
Which means "We, as women, will judge men first and then announce our judgement for all to see without the men we name being able to defend themselves".
If women want to date a man who is famous for writing multiple memoirs about his addiction to acting shitty and S&M, I doubt a database of other people's bad dates is going to help them much.
And if any of the women saying anonymously that they were raped and want to prevent the same from happening to other women, there's only one way to do that: call the police.
Even if calling the police is sooo uncool, or your internship at Atlantic hangs in the balance.
"I only wanted ..." is what people say when things go terribly wrong for them. I understand the idea of a "safe space," but how well does that go along with the demands for diversity and inclusion?
True enough. What would opinions be if it was "I only wanted to create a safe space for us to crap on our bosses without having to worry about our allegations having any truth or merit?" "I only wanted a safe space to play gold with only other white men?" "I only wanted to create a space where we could use the 'N' word without being needlessly discredited or judged?"
I see Eddie Haskell is back on the forum.
Scenarios like this make me wish for a requirement that, once you have filed a lawsuit -- i.e. once you have asked the government to solve your problem -- there is a rebuttable presumption that everything about the resolution needs to be made public.
The time for a private, confidential settlement is before you invoke the courts, not afterwards.
It was never a defendable project. Women/girls have always warned each other of the predatory men at school, workplace, etc. Those warned could then assess their own interactions and make their own opinions of the person, but also take precautions until they did.
But to write it down, spread it far and wide across the world, without substantiation or corroboration, or even attribution was always going to backfire. She created a space where men could be judge and harassed without being able to defend themselves against the charges. Or those rushing to judge able to make their own opinion of the person from personal experience. She couldn't allow men to respond to her list or even post a warning that the statements were not vetted without refuting her purpose and provoking the ire of women.
Perhaps she didn't intend to do harm, but she did. Because she took not thought to what such a list could be used for by malevolent women.
Amazing lack of self-awareness and empathy. The men who were unfairly accused also do not want to be "needlessly discredited or judged" for crimes they apparently did not commit.
"Eloquent counterpoint"? Are you suggesting that the solicitation of items, creation of the list, and insecure dissemination of the list, is NOT defamation? It was a literal blacklist, and I do not believe for a moment that it's purpose was merely to be a "safe space". It's purpose, as a list, was to warn off potential business and relationships from the listed men. Likely, concrete damage resulted.
Women are strong, resiliant, capable, persistant and require safe placed to protect their fragile selves.
Chuck again:
Sorry, Althouse, to have tried to find some nuance here as opposed to your MAGA commenters' one-line assaults as seen immediately above. But I do value your legal analysis even when I disagree with it.
This is called "Humble bragging" and Chuck, as usual, has to fuck it up.
"I only wanted to create a place for women to share their stories of harassment and assault without being needlessly discredited or judged."
Clearly untrue or she wouldn't have gone along with publishing the list. She wanted to shame certain men.
Maybe they deserved it, but we don't know for sure.
Nimrod Reitman was needlessly harrassed and judge by Prof Ann's favorite two groups: hackademia and Metoo media.
Why didn't he get the same safe space from a serial predator that we're supposed to give serial grifter Moira?
Ann,
"needless discredited" or "judged"?
Is there some reason that those women prone to seek revenge on men are less likely to lie in this forum than in a more public one?
I would think that if they are less likely to be discredited or judged because it is done behind the accused's back, then lies would have less consequences and be more likely.
Of course many men are rotters; no argument there. But so are many women. Honestly, I'm don't see the eloquent counterpoint.
LLR-Democratical Chuck: "So first; I think this entire series of blog posts by Althouse has been very valuable blogging. I actually think Althouse's light touch, on judging the merits of any of the actions (pro or con on the listing) is quite nice, and opens the conversation."
The creepiest and cringiest LLR-Democratical Chuck is the Forced-Insincere-"Eddie-Haskell"-ized LLR-Democratical Chuck.
This one receives my (thankfully little-used) Althouse bullshit tag.
"This is called "Humble bragging" and Chuck, as usual, has to fuck it up."
Chuck and Joe Biden have a lot in common. A lot.
Biden's daughter claims Joementia showered with her.
Joementia's not really a Hollywood guy though.
Hunter's an artist.
Witch hunts, warlock trials, and human rites.
The title quote: I agree that that is what she wanted, and that this is a valuable thing to want. But without guardrails, people can get hurt. Good intentions are seldom enough.
After hitting publish, it occurred to me that my view is colored by a career working at a psych hospital, where all accusations have to be taken seriously (because they were not in the past), even if they are psychotic and impossible. It is a very bad feeling to be accused and be under investigation by people you know are incompetent or don't like you.
How do you write women so well?
"I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability."
Jack Nicholson as Melvin Udall
When she published the list, Moira Donegan first virtue-signalled that she was doing it because black women in her industry didn't have access to the "whisper lists" shared among privileged, upper-class white females like herself. She then claimed she didn't think it would get much attention, and then claimed she was shocked when it did get attention, and then decided it was getting too much attention, so she took it down. She claimed she never thought men named were going to be investigated and lose their jobs, and she claimed that was not the intent, that it was just therapy, but also a way for women to be heard publicly. This is all from just one essay in The Cut.
There is nothing elegant, honest, or even barely coherent about this passel of contradictory justifications. The (anonymous) women were to be "heard" by naming men, only just therapeutically? But they got heard too much? She didn't think publicly accusing men of rape throughout their industry would lead to consequences? She dissed the police as well, even though surveys by feminist groups have found surprisingly (to them) high satisfaction rates among women reporting sex crimes regarding their treatment by police and detectives -- though not so much the DAs and courts. Of course, she's too stupid to even begin to understand that distinction. And she complained that any criminal or HR complaints had the flaw of having to investigate with that icky presumption of innocence.
Mob action always gets so mobby.
Is it a counterpoint to the law of defamation?
"I only wanted the ability to make a claim about someone and also not be responsible for making that claim."
Like, yeah, we all understand--when they're angry children want to be able to hit their sibling without being hit back nor face any other punishment; it's certainly a human impulse!
It's not a particularly *noble* idea, though, nor one that's universalizable, nor congruent with the golden rule, nor Constitutional norms around being able to know the charges against you and face your accuser. Arguably the list isn't really "punching up" either--it's likely many of the women adding to and using the list are higher-status than many of the men they put on it.
Strip away the legal questions and the political dynamics of the people involved and you've got bad behavior of a mundane kind: the movie Mean Girls had a "burn book" subplot almost 20 years ago. Girls will be girls!
"I only wanted to create a place for people who think the same to share stories that confirm what they already believe" does sound a lot like today's media echo chamber, though.
Or a KKK meeting.
Or does she mean, "I only wanted to create a place where lying womyn could make false accusations without facing any consequences"?
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