A daily roundup of the biggest stories in right-wing media.
Conservatives continued to address the various sexual misconduct scandals circulating on Tuesday. At National Review, Ben Shapiro made the case for a return to conservative norms about sex:
All of these rules have fallen under heavy attack — and sometimes the attacks have been justified by the over-restrictiveness of certain rules. But the basis for the rules was simple: Men could not be universally trusted not to sin against women. Call it male control, complete with background checks, mandatory training, and a well-developed male enforcement structure.
The Left, in its refusal to acknowledge the inherent flaws in humanity, decided to do away with the rules. Instead, men were bad because men had been poisoned by the social structure, or because they were screwed up by their parents. Rules were artificial barriers to progress. In fact, it was the rules themselves that were to blame for male misbehavior. Marriage had taught men that women were property; thus, kill marriage, kill that pernicious view. Sexual taboos had taught men that women were dangerous seductresses; kill that taboo, kill that pernicious view. Chivalry had taught men that women were weak, and could therefore be exploited; kill chivalry, kill that pernicious view.
It seemed nice in theory. It has failed dramatically in practice.
At the Daily Wire, Matt Walsh argued for a return to masculinity and called the men recently accused of sexual predation “effeminate”:
The problem is not that there is too much masculinity in our culture. On the contrary, there isn’t nearly enough. A man becomes an abuser and harasser of women when he rejects that which makes him a man. He is not expressing his masculinity when he strips naked and struts around in front of his unwilling coworkers and subordinates — a move that seems oddly common among these types — rather, he is expressing his almost complete lack of masculinity.
These men are weird, desperate, self-debasing, and effeminate. If you say we should have fewer of those kinds in positions of power, I agree. Let’s have none at all. But we would do well to replace them with men who are actually men. What we need in our society are chivalrous, strong, respectable, productive, and self-sacrificial men. Real men, in other words. Men who protect, provide, and do all of the things that society has always depended upon men to do. If you are that sort of man, you certainly should not shut up, step to the side, or consider yourself “trash.” Our culture needs your input and leadership more than ever.
A post at LifeZette took aim at Charlie Rose’s claims of advocacy for women. “It’s disturbing to see in retrospect that Rose was trying to put himself on the right side of history in front of the camera — while having an alleged past that was just as predatory as some of the other accused men on whom he was reporting,” it read. RedState’s Susan Wright commented on a video of Rose denying any involvement in “wrongdoings.” “NEWSFLASH: Unwanted groping is wrongdoing,” she wrote. “Unwanted sexual conversation, especially with those who work for you, in some capacity, is wrongdoing. Stripping down and walking around naked, putting anyone in that very uncomfortable and vulnerable position is wrongdoing.” Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey watched the opening of Tuesday’s airing of CBS This Morning, the first since Rose’s suspension from the network, in which co-hosts Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell said they’d been unaware of the accusations against him:
The lack of accountability at CBS This Morning and at PBS and Bloomberg was apparently so acute that the women victimized by Rose felt that they couldn’t even speak up to their natural allies on the set to correct the situation. Again, that’s no knock on King or O’Donnell, who couldn’t correct what they didn’t know, but it might be a starting place for building better structures of accountability down the road. After all, this is supposed to be a journalistic enterprise, which is all about imposing accountability and transparency on others. This is a wake-up call for CBS, PBS, Bloomberg, and others to apply those standards internally as well.
The Daily Wire’s Emily Zanotti wrote a post about a letter of support for Al Franken written by former female colleagues of his from SNL. “All though the statement is clearly sincere, the timing may be off,” she argued. “Just as with Lena Dunham’s Saturday defense of a “Girls” co-writer, public letters like this can have the effect of silencing any future accusers. It’s one thing to face the overwhelming task of alleging that a prominent man may be guilty of sexual harassment or assault, it’s quite another to face a host of women defending and protecting him — and saying, essentially, that since the sisterhood recognizes him as non-threatening, accusers must be wrong.
On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh pushed back against a caller who insisted that a female boss exposing herself would be welcomed by most men:
The stereotypical, entertaining way to look at this is what you said. You know, how many guys dream of a woman walking out of the shower nude wanting them? And so if it happens to you, you tell your buddies down at the five and dime, and they all high-five you.
But if you throw the circumstance of work into this, and you’re subservient and you can be fired if you do the wrong thing in that circumstance, then it takes all of the stereotypical—look, we’ll all admit here—well, we won’t all admit. But some universal truths. And that is that the number of men who would be offended as opposed to intrigued by a woman presenting herself nude, I mean, men and women are different, and a lot of men would find that flattering and exciting, and they would brag about it and so forth. There’s no question about that.
But you throw employment into it, you throw being paid into this situation, it changes it. It takes the stereotypical male role play, female role play totally out of this. It takes the romance out of this. This has gotta be shocking. I don’t doubt that it is infuriating, that it is unnerving, that it just ticks these women off and scares them. I don’t have any doubt that they feel violated or stalked or any of this. And offended.
