Editor’s note: This commentary is by Mark Pendergrast, who is the author of many books. He lives in Colchester and can be reached through his website, www.markpendergrast.com.
[I]’ve been pondering why the term “sexual predator” bothers me, just as it disturbs me when people label someone as evil or insane or a monster. It provides a convenient stereotypical compartment to keep them at bay, to make them the “other,” different from normal people, different from us, the good guys. The fact is, it is not people themselves who are evil. It is their actions. And people can change. Most people, other than true psychopaths, do not intend to do evil. They are doing the right thing, in their own minds. That is, in fact, the more frightening reality.
In “The Evil of Banality” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), Elizabeth Minnich, a student of Hannah Arendt, makes a similar point when she complains about retrospectively “diagnosing” mental illness in people like Adolf Eichmann or Saddam Hussein. “We diagnose, and that is that: done,” writes Minnich. “Nothing more to comprehend politically, morally. Torturers? They’re all psychopaths.”
This kind of labeling neatly categorizes “the enemy,” the bad guys, and makes them safely different from any of us upstanding, moral, normal people. This is precisely the sort of labeling that the self-righteous, self-involved, morally obtuse Donald Trump uses to dismiss mass shootings, North Koreans, and virtually anyone who disagrees with him. It is ironic, of course, that Trump himself is the ultimate candidate for being called a “sexual predator.”
The other problem with calling someone who sexually harasses another person a “predator” is that it automatically presumes guilt. I have researched and written about false allegations of sexual abuse, so I am aware of how easy it is for the media to stoke the flames and to assume guilt. I am consequently careful not to form snap judgments on any individual case. I want to determine the facts, sift the evidence, and then come to my own conclusion. In a climate of hysterical blame, it is difficult to do that. I also have studied and written about the way memory works. It is malleable and subject to retrospective influence. So the further back in time the allegations reach, the more substantial the evidence needs to be.
Plus, calling someone a “sexual predator” tends to sweep different levels of bad behavior together. An officemate who makes a pass at someone in the next cubicle or who makes out at a drunken party is not the equivalent of a rapist. We tend all too often in America to stigmatize behavior and label people.
Don’t get me wrong – I am in no way sanctioning any form of unwanted sexual advance. But let us put this in perspective and try to look at each individual case. More broadly, we need to examine the cultural and political climate that produces men like Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump and the power structures that silently wink at or allow their behavior. But calling people names is not going to promote change or understanding.
