The #MeToo movement, spurred on by the alleged desire to expose and fight against men who sexually abuse and harass women, has, for some, already become yet another feminist tribal battle cry in their ongoing obsession of pitting women against men. An unintended consequence of any serious movement is that it devolves into a kind of pop-culture fad, where the promotion of an image or idea is more important than the telling of truth. One of the unintended messages from the #MeToo movement is the promotion of the extreme feminist idea that all men are essentially predators due to the so-called “patriarchy” within mainstream culture. This message follows that cultural “maleness” must be resisted, and put down because it produces unjust things like inequality and sexual harassment.

So while the movement recognizes the problem of sexual harassment and abuse it refuses to accept commonsense cultural safe guards that help to protect women against abuse. For example, Vice President Mike Pence has been much maligned over his long-time practice of refusing to be alone one-on-one with a woman who is not his wife. Feminists complain that this standard may hamper a woman’s ability to move ahead. The Miami Herald recently reported that female lobbyists and staffers have found that “many male legislators will no longer meet with them privately.” Jennifer Green, a lobbyist, noted, “I had a senator say, ‘I need my aide here in the room because I need a chaperone,’” She elaborated, “I said, ‘Senator, why do you need a chaperone? … Do you feel uncomfortable around me?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘anyone can say anything with the door shut.’”

Of the #MeToo movement, Claire Berlinski recently wrote that it is “a frenzied extrajudicial warlock hunt that does not pause to parse the difference between rape and stupidity.” In fact, she added, “It has become a classic moral panic, one that is ultimately as dangerous to women as to men.”

It makes both logical and common sense for men who find themselves in positions of power to protect themselves from even the perception of indiscretion. The truth is that men and women have always played different roles within society, and no amount of cultural manipulation or denial of fundamental differences will remove this reality. Men are men and women are women, no matter how much the transgender movement may claim otherwise. To deny this is to deny both biological and experiential truth. Sexual attraction and tension are facts of life. No amount of politically correct social reengineering will remove this from either the workplace or society at large. If men feel they are being targeted, why would they not act to protect themselves?