The rise of the #MeToo backlash: how the mood of the movement changed

Margaret Atwood is an unlikely enemy of feminism. The TV adaptation of her 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale was the cultural high watermark of last year. Its depiction of a dystopian republic where women are enslaved as submissive reproductive vessels struck a chord with women across the world, who donned the show’s white bonnets during anti-Trump protests. Atwood was also a producer on the show.

Yet now the author stands accused of failing women, and has been tarred with what her detractors intend as the ultimate insult: “an old, cisgender white woman”. And all for writing a nuanced opinion piece questioning the impact of our current rash of “calling out” inappropriate sexual behaviour. In her article, published in Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail, she addresses the emergent pernicious opposition between “good” and “bad” feminism, and with a degree of irony has been labelled a “bad feminist” for doing so.

It’s the latest development in the #MeToo backlash, which began last Tuesday when an open letter from the proto-Belle de Jour Catherine Deneuve and 99 other women was published in Le Monde. The women claimed that the campaign against sexual violence had gone too far. “Rape is a crime but insistent or clumsy flirting is not an offence” they wrote. Actress Miriam Margolyes sided with Deneuve, adding that #MeToo could tip over into a witch-hunt. Deneuve faced a similar vitriolic response to Atwood and has since apologised.

A divide is forming, not between victims of abuse and perpetrators but between the people broadcasting these accusations and anyone who challenges them. On Tuesday, US news anchor Ashleigh Banfield criticised the incendiary way online magazine Babe.net reported a complicated date between a New York photographer and comedian Aziz Ansari, in which the photographer claimed that their sexual encounter constituted assault. “I was physically giving off cues that I wasn’t interested,” says the anonymous young woman. The reporter who broke the story, Katie Way, hit back at Banfield with an email, which Banfield read on air last night: “I hope the 500 retweets on the single news write-up made that burgundy-lipstick, bad-highlights, second-wave feminist has-been feel really relevant for a little while … I’m 22 and so far, not too shabby ... I will laugh the day you fold.”

Atwood discusses this new hostility. Her piece argued that while the #MeToo movement “has been very effective”, she questions what comes next. “In times of extremes, extremists win,” she writes. “Their ideology becomes a religion, and anyone who doesn’t puppet their views is seen as an apostate, a heretic or a traitor, and moderates in the middle are annihilated.” The reaction to her column would suggest that she is right, but she is far from alone in challenging the current wave of puritanical thinking, and an increasing number of “bad feminists” are speaking up.

She warns against “vigilante justice”, referencing a male writer who was accused of sexual harassment at the University of British Columbia. After a “barrage of invective”, and with no regard for due process, he was fired. A judge eventually ruled that there had been no sexual assault.

There are parallels with what’s happened to Ansari this week. While the initial reaction to Sunday night’s Babe piece was viral criticism of his alleged behaviour, the tone soon shifted. It happened quietly at first, because questioning a young woman who has spoken up about what she feels is abuse is fraught with danger that you will be accused of silencing her. But commentators soon wondered about the account. The young woman in the piece is anonymous, yet she has named Ansari in a case of one person’s word against another — is this responsible journalism, especially when Ansari has denied sexual misconduct? An article by Caitlin Flanagan in The Atlantic observes: “Women are angry and temporarily powerful, and last night they destroyed a man who didn’t deserve it.” While an opinion piece in The New York Times by Bari Weiss questions the concept of ignoring “non-verbal cues”: “Put in other words: I am angry that you weren’t able to read my mind.”

Weiss argues that stories like the Babe one present women as powerless objects to whom things are done. Many women are deeply uncomfortable with this. Whoopi Goldberg has joined the “bad feminists”, saying yesterday on American TV: “If you’re on a date and he’s not as good as you thought, and you’re uncomfortable and [giving non-verbal cues], does that mean stop, get out, go away?” She went on to say: “Whatever happened to ‘Stop or I’m going to knock you in your nuts?’”

The #MeToo movement was sparked by allegations against Harvey Weinstein, a man who stands accused of a series of rapes and attacks over the course of decades. As the hashtag gathered pace, it led to a global tectonic shift that exposed institutional abuses of power. But, perhaps because of the reductive nature of Twitter, the positive groundswell of #MeToo was reduced to a binary battle: you’re either with us or against us. Atwood warns against “a war among women ... which is always pleasing to those who do not wish women well.”

Again, Atwood had a prescient take. Last year she said that feminism is not defined as the assumption women are always right. Since writing her opinion piece this month, she tweeted: “Endorsing basic human rights for everyone is not warring against women. In order to have rights for women you have to have rights.” She adds: “#MeToo is a symptom of something that’s wrong. Tear down system and substitute (eventually) another.”

The Handmaid’s Tale, meanwhile, returns for a second series later this year. The trailer shows Offred (Elisabeth Moss) gagged in a field and then a sign saying “Resist”, all set to a haunting remix of Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth. On an industrial scale, women are being silenced and pitted against each other. Atwood of all people knows how bleak a world with no freedom of expression can be.

Just how bad a feminist are you?

Your date buys you a gin and tonic. You prefer pale ale. Do you...

a. Hotfoot it out of there as quickly as you can and get to work telling everyone you know this was a sign that he wanted control over you - this man is a threat. Your should have thrown it down his shirt.

b. Politely thank him, adding that you’re paying for the next round and yours is usually a beer.

c. Down it. You fancy him and need Dutch courage to take the next step.

A male colleague emails to say he likes your skirt. Do you...

a. Forward his message to HR and tweet your experience to publicly call him out. That sexist dinosaur doesn’t deserve to be in his job with an attitude like that. You wait for the #I’mwithher solidarity messages to flood in and feel a rush of validation when your message is favourited by the Women’s Equality Party.

b. Ignore him - you’re far too busy being a top power exec anyway.

c. Reply thanking him and telling him it’s from the Arket sale.

Equal pay is?

a. Non-negotiable. Men’s salaries must be slashed. Immediately.

b. A complicated issue that has developed after decades of inequality which thankfully is now being addressed.

c. Unrealistic. Not all men deserve pay cuts; saying women must get the same is an assumption too far.

Your female boss allows your male colleague to speak over you and laughs at his joke. Do you...

a. Write raging emails to HR about that haridan boss. It’s typical of the older generation of so-called feminists to stifle the ambition of younger women because they are jealous of their wrinkle-free skin.

b. Quietly fume but keep it to yourself. You’ll get one over your male colleague eventually.

c. Laugh uproariously. He’s hilarious.

Mostly as: Congrats, you’re A Good Feminist. Don’t let it go to your head, lady.

Mostly bs: You are a master of nuance. This has got you into trouble on Twitter. This makes you A Bad Feminist. But you are in good company with Atwood.

Mostly cs: You are about as feminist as Donald Trump. And you don’t care.