Is this the moment MeToo died?

It felt for the first time since the MeToo movement took the world by storm in 2017 that the tide was truly turning. And since then, the pendulum has not swung back.

There was a moment, of course, defined by the extraordinary bravery of Gisèle Pelicot, when it felt like something had shifted. That shame had, indeed, changed hands. But watching how the online world, specifically the manosphere, has reacted to events of the past few months, I’m not sure we kept our promise to Gisèle, or to all the other brave women who risked their careers to break the culture of silence and victim-blaming.

And not only did we fail to keep our promise, but it almost feels as though the misogyny oozing out of the foulest corners of the internet today is more sinister, more vitriolic, and more revenge-hungry than it was pre-MeToo. The misogynists feel deeply aggrieved that, for half a decade, they were mildly chastened by a feminist zeitgeist. And now that the ball is back in their court, they are going to make us pay.

The clearest canary in the coal mine here is the case of Jane Doe and the Cornell 7. But to understand why the discourse surrounding this case has become so stomach-churningly disgusting, we must first go back a month or so, to the Lindsey Clancy trial.

Clancy, who stood accused (a retrial is pending) of killing her three children and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, became one of the most divisive figures in US politics earlier this year. Many women, sympathetic to Clancy’s well-documented postpartum psychosis, used the case to draw attention to the woefully underrecognised issue of new mothers’ mental health, and blamed those around Clancy for ignoring her pleas for help. Of course, as is the way with the internet, some people defending Clancy took to making tone-deaf podcasts in which they attempted to lay the blame at the feet of her husband, who has since remarried.

The fact that some women online either defended Clancy or refused to vilify her provoked a level of rage from the manosphere that was perhaps unprecedented. They believed this was the ultimate proof of female privilege – the very ideology on which inceldom is founded: that women possess all the power and privilege, and deliberately humiliate men by withholding sex, driving them to murder or suicide. The fact that only one male juror refused to vote not guilty was, in their eyes, further proof of a conspiracy among women.

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Far right American commentator Matt Walsh, who has millions of followers online, said of the case: “There’s no telling how many unbalanced women are now going to follow her lead. Pray for the children whose lives are now in jeopardy thanks to the retarded TikTok feminist hordes.”

Putting aside the morality of the case for a second, there is only one thing we need to understand here: the Clancy case, and the perceived complicity of women in defending her, cemented in the minds of far-right, incel and manosphere circles the idea that women are inherently deceitful and deserve to be punished for it. Furthermore, these men were not meaningfully rebuked by the more liberal corners of these circles for holding this view. That is important.

Cut to the Cornell 7 case. For those unaware, the case centres on a female complainant, referred to online as Jane Doe, who alleges she was gang-raped at a fraternity party at Cornell University.

From the scummiest woman-hating accounts online to established progressive news outlets, the reaction has, by and large, not been one of sympathy, solidarity, or a hunger for justice. Despite the existence of text messages and social media exchanges that appear to corroborate her account, there has been what I can only describe as, at best, equivocation and, at worst, a bloodthirsty witch-hunt against this girl.

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This is because Jane Doe was using ketamine and initially consented to sexual intercourse with two members of the fraternity.

“Was Cornell’s Jane Doe a victim or a sinner?” read one New Statesman headline. The piece itself is not, in any way, victim-blaming. But could you imagine a headline like that being approved in a more enlightened era? 

What happened to the mantras that used to plaster the online accounts of self-described feminists throughout the 2010s? That it doesn’t matter what she was wearing, whether she was drinking, or whether she initially said yes – it can still be rape?

For the manosphere, the fact that Jane Doe fits into what is categorised as an “imperfect victim” has become their smoking gun. The proof they have been waiting for for years. 

That women really do lie about rape. That women deliberately put themselves in dangerous situations, hoping to be raped, just so they can ruin innocent men’s lives. And that we, as the political majority, have not done enough to rebuke them for it.

Streamer Asmongold, who garners millions of views per stream, said of the case: “She was obviously a slut… women love projecting their own personal experiences into other people’s lives… There’s a huge spectrum between being gang-b-nged by 7 men and you getting drunk with a guy, hooking up and not remembering what happened.”

To be clear, on platforms that tend to be more female-dominated, like Instagram, there was plenty of support for the alleged victim, with many girls posting “I am Jane Doe” and sharing their own experiences in solidarity. But on X, owned by Elon Musk, the reaction has been markedly different.

In response to the “I am Jane Doe” trend, right wing men on X began creating their own versions: “we are jane doe. we do ketamine. we are whores. we get gangbanged”. Simply search Jane Doe on X and you won’t find reams of posts discussing rape culture on college campuses (a well-documented problem, remember Brock Turner, the Stanford University swimmer who served only 90 days in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind his frat house?). 

Instead, you will find variations on the same sentiment: she is a whore who loves drugs and sex, and is either lying about what happened or deserved it.

And it doesn’t stop there. Several users on X have actually doxxed the woman they believe to be the real Jane Doe, plastering her face and Instagram posts across the platform and labelling her a slut, a liar, and much worse. 

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The most viral doxxing, which has been viewed over a million times, says this: “Just a PSA. This is what she looks like. This girl was not SA’d. It wasn’t until Clancy got a fanclub of the insane that a money grubbing lawyer got a civil suit filed. This chick is looking to get rich after getting a reputation as a hoe and then being rejected. 

“People do stupid stuff for the sake of their egos all the time. Why would an immature 20-year-old promiscuous wench who does drugs and drinks and has the chance to get rich (because dumbass leftists believe her despite mountains of evidence to the contrary) be any different?”

Imagine the horrors if they’ve doxxed the wrong woman. And imagine the horrors if they’ve doxxed the real woman.

All this is to say that misogyny has changed over the last ten years. Incel forums have been allowed to run rampant online, where lonely men convince themselves, and one another, that all women are whores who exist solely to cuckold, deceive and destroy men’s lives; that women cannot be trusted and must be taught a lesson. Look at Victor Valentine, a man from Cheltenham who bragged on an incel forum about punching a woman in the face for no reason other than his sheer contempt for women, and who has since been given a sexual harm prevention order.

And so, whenever a high-profile news story comes along about a woman on trial or an “imperfect” rape victim, it only stokes the ugly, dangerous fire in the belly of this monstrous beast. And the worst part is that we don’t even seem to care. Instead, we find ourselves pandering to their level, engaging on their terms and legitimising their discourse.

So I do not know when MeToo died. But if the Cornell 7 case is anything to go by, all I know is that the body is well and truly cold. It will surely fall to some other unimaginably brave women to try to coax society back to sanity.