We once watched actress Zoe Wanamaker describe the acute travail suffered by her father and family during the Joe McCarthy "Reds under beds" allegations and "investigations" in the fifties. Eventually the Wanamaker family decamped from the United States to the UK. America's loss was the UK's gain.
We are now left wondering whether a new form of McCarthyism is presently sweeping across the United States. A Guardian writer has been lamenting the summary firing of NBC's Matt Lauer over sexual misconduct allegations. We wonder whether columnist Jill Filopovic's mind was properly engaged when she wrote lines such as:
We must deal with complexity of admiring a man – and accepting that he may have done something awfulAh, but is it true?
. . . . the latest in a string of high-profile men brought down by accusations of handsiness or inappropriate behavior toward female colleagues.
This is new. And it’s a feminist victory.
