The New Yorker: «Should Al Franken resign?» It’s the wrong question
In the current wave of sexual-assault allegations surrounding Al Franken and other prominent men, the conversation should not be framed in terms of retribution. Photograph by Melina Mara / The Washington Post via Getty
Should Senator Al Franken resign following revelations of sexual harassment? Michelle Goldberg, writing in the Times, says yes, in order to preserve the momentum of “the current movement toward unprecedented accountability for sexual harassers.” Writing in the Washington Post, Kate Harding says no: as a legislator, Franken has done good things for women, and, as a repentant sexual harasser in politics, he could do even more. Both arguments clearly have merit, and both of the writers acknowledge that the opposing view is compelling. But maybe “Should Al Franken resign?” is the wrong question.
The question frames the conversation in terms of retribution, but it is not possible to hold to account every man who has ever behaved disrespectfully and disgustingly toward a woman. Nor even every senator, or every comedian. And, even if it were possible to punish every single one of them, what would be accomplished? Punishment, especially when it is delayed, is not a very effective deterrent.
The current wave of revelations began with the stories of women who said that they had been abused by the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. At the heart of these allegations were not just the harrowing physical acts but also the act of what amounted to hostage-taking. Weinstein made sexual contact a condition of actresses’ careers—their future. Silence was another condition. For Weinstein’s victims, every role and every accolade came with the private shame of knowing the price they had paid. Even as young actresses grew into stars, Weinstein’s power over them did not diminish. His power got him sex, and the sex gave him more power.
Even the ways in which Weinstein faced pushback for his behavior were framed in terms of male power. The second Times story on Weinstein contained an account of the producer’s advances toward Gwyneth Paltrow, who was twenty-two at the time. The actress told her then boyfriend, Brad Pitt, who proceeded to confront Weinstein—and Weinstein, in turn, berated and threatened Paltrow for breaking the silence. People magazine followed up with a fawning story that emphasized the courage it must have taken for Pitt to poke Weinstein in the chest and say, “You will not ever do this to Gwyneth ever again”; otherwise, according to the article, Pitt threatened to beat Weinstein up. What Pitt does not appear to have done is threaten to expose Weinstein publicly, or tell him not to harass other women. From the available accounts, he acted like a man protecting his property.
Pitt is not the villain here, but the story, as it has been spun, is instructive: this is how the conversation devolves from one about men accruing and abusing power over women to one in which men negotiate which women can be touched without fear of retribution.
Ellen Page / Brett Ratner
Nor is the fact of touching a body the most important part of the conversation. An extraordinary document of the current watershed of sexual-abuse allegations is a Facebook post by the actress Ellen Page. The bulk of it is devoted to an incident that involved no physical contact. According to Page, when she was eighteen, the director and producer Brett Ratner made crude comments about her in front of other actors and outed her to the cast. He and his team allegedly proceeded to humiliate Page while also demanding her loyalty: at one point, she says, she was instructed to wear a T-shirt with the words “Team Ratner” on it. Page, according to her account, was being taken hostage. (Ratner has not responded publicly to Page’s allegations.) In a single sentence in the sixth paragraph of the post, Page mentions being sexually assaulted by a crew member—an event that she clearly sees as a consequence of being dehumanized by much more powerful men. Her assailant had no reason to fear retribution. Conversely, if the crew member were held accountable now, it would neither change the culture Page describes nor avenge her injury.
As for Franken, there is something particularly disquieting about the similarity of his alleged actions, as described by Leeann Tweeden and acknowledged by him, to the behavior Donald Trump described in the “Access Hollywood” recording. But the more disturbing charges against Trump concerned women whose careers he controlled, such as the former Miss Utah Temple Taggart and the “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos.
Those cases illustrate the real issue here: the power imbalance that allows some men to take women hostage using sex. Franken, from what we know, was not such a man. When he kissed Tweeden without her consent, during a rehearsal on a U.S.O. tour, she was able to, according to her description, push her assailant away, tell him, “Don’t ever do that to me again,” and walk away—hurt and disgusted, to be sure, but not in fear for her future. She wrote that she didn’t go public at the time because she “didn’t want to cause trouble,” and didn’t feel that she needed protection from Franken. On the way back from the tour, Franken posed for a picture in which he pretended to grope Tweeden’s breasts when she fell asleep on a plane. More than a decade later, when Tweeden decided to go public, he apologized. “The apology, sure, I accept it,” Tweeden said in a press conference. “People make mistakes.” She sounded less magnanimous than annoyed. She explained that she had decided to go public in order to encourage other women to speak up without fear. That matters. Whether Franken resigns does not.
Masha Gessen, a staff writer, has written several books, including, most recently, “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia,” which won the National Book Award in 2017
