You’ve probably already heard about Louis CK’s mea culpa. I’m unimpressed.

I want to address the stories told to the New York Times by five women named Abby, Rebecca, Dana, Julia who felt able to name themselves and one who did not.

These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly.

I have been remorseful of my actions. And I’ve tried to learn from them. And run from them. Now I’m aware of the extent of the impact of my actions. I learned yesterday the extent to which I left these women who admired me feeling badly about themselves and cautious around other men who would never have put them in that position.

I also took advantage of the fact that I was widely admired in my and their community, which disabled them from sharing their story and brought hardship to them when they tried because people who look up to me didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t think that I was doing any of that because my position allowed me not to think about it.

There is nothing about this that I forgive myself for. And I have to reconcile it with who I am. Which is nothing compared to the task I left them with.

I wish I had reacted to their admiration of me by being a good example to them as a man and given them some guidance as a comedian, including because I admired their work.

The hardest regret to live with is what you’ve done to hurt someone else. And I can hardly wrap my head around the scope of hurt I brought on them. I’d be remiss to exclude the hurt that I’ve brought on people who I work with and have worked with who’s professional and personal lives have been impacted by all of this, including projects currently in production: the cast and crew of Better Things, Baskets, The Cops, One Mississippi, and I Love You Daddy. I deeply regret that this has brought negative attention to my manager Dave Becky who only tried to mediate a situation that I caused. I’ve brought anguish and hardship to the people at FX who have given me so much The Orchard who took a chance on my movie. and every other entity that has bet on me through the years.

I’ve brought pain to my family, my friends, my children and their mother.

I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want. I will now step back and take a long time to listen.

Thank you for reading.

My reactions:

• He confessed that the accusations were true. That’s good. This might have been a great statement if he’d said, “These stories are true. I am sorry.” FULL STOP.

• At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true. See? He should have stopped before this. That was just stupid. Sure, he asked. They said NO. I’m gonna go ask this guy in front of me at the airport for his wallet, and if he says no, I’m just going to take it anyway. Asking first makes it OK.

• I don’t care if you have power over a person or not, asking them to look at your dick is just plain weird. I have no power over this guy with the wallet in front of me, I’m not going to put on a penis puppet show for him, against his will. Because that would be wrong.

• How often is he going to tell us how admired he is? I’ll remove that source of guilt from him, at least: he’s not admired anymore.

• He only learned yesterday how much he hurt people? He should have been able to figure this out before he inflicted his kinks on others. To claim now that he was unaware of the wrongness of his actions is bullshit.

• He wishes that he’d reacted by being a good example to them as a man. OK. Please understand, then, that he’s been a poor example of a man, and should shut up about how he was admired. That admiration was undeserved.

• The only people who deserve any sympathy here are his family, friends, children, and wife. And his victims. He can self-flagellate all he wants, it’s not going to win him any pity.

• He’s going to listen. Great. Listen to this: go away. Louis CK has disgraced himself and his work, and I for one don’t need to hear any more about him.

I don’t accept the Christian principle that an admission of contrition is sufficient to absolve someone of bad behavior. It requires real change. I don’t see what Louis CK is going to do to be a better person, and I doubt that he’s going to adopt a quiet life of faithfulness to his family and respect for others — he’s tasted the heady waters of power over others and used it for self-indulgence. I’ll believe he’s a changed man when he shows it, but not when he practices a written form of exhibitionism.

Take a famous and popular artist, one who is creative and imaginative and breaks through all kinds of walls.

Take a rather sleazy person who enjoys degrading himself and others, who abuses women and takes gross sexual advantage in a way that is so extreme that people refuse to believe it.

Can those two descriptions fit the same singular individual? Of course they can. I’d even argue that the more talented you are, the more likely you are to avoid censure for misbehavior; being talented doesn’t cause abusive personalities, but they are given far more leeway than Joe Schmoe wearing an overcoat and nothing else, with no reputation to reward looking the other way.

Read this story from just a few days ago, about Louis CK. The author praises Louis CK’s comedic ability, and acknowledges that they bias him. But he still doubts the accusations.

I cannot say with any certainty that C.K is guilty of what he’s being accused of.

Yet the current cultural climate has made it difficult to continue to give C.K. the benefit of the doubt. You can’t say “believe women” and then make exceptions for comedians and auteurs you personally admire and respect. I don’t know if C.K is guilty of the transgressions he’s accused of, but I also can’t really imagine how you would develop a reputation for masturbating in front of female comedians without, you know, masturbating in front of female comedians.

Read the comments. Here’s an example.

It’s a chewed over, tired, need-them-monday-clicks kind of discussion, but for my 2 cents until there is any kind of substance to the allegations, let alone ‘proof’, I don’t see what the point in speculating is. ‘Someone who may or may not be Louis CK may or may not have jerked off in front of Garfunkel and Oates – he says no, they say nothing’ is all we have had for years

“Benefit of the doubt” and “innocent until proven” are weirdly complicated terms that are simplified by assumptions. We will give the benefit of the doubt to Louis CK, but we will not give any benefit of the doubt to the women accusing him at all. Louis CK is innocent until every wisp of an argument against him is conclusively proven; the women are assumed to be liars until every jot and tittle is nailed down with absolute certainty in a court of law. The purpose of the “innocent until proven guilty” standard is to prevent harm to someone until their guilt is established, but somehow we don’t care so much about the harm done to the victims of abuse by a privileged, sheltered artist. We’ve been hearing these stories about Louis CK for years, but — and this is the problem — nothing has been done. No investigation, no credibility has been bestowed on the many women who bring nearly identical stories to the table, everything recedes away from the Great Man and his unimpeachable denials.

Money, power, and influence give them a shield against having to address these accusations that the poor, the weak, and the unknown don’t have. In a just world, Louis CK would not be able to stonewall and deflect these stories, and the credible, distressed women would have instantly rallied a call for closer examination rather than the excuses of “Oh, but I really like Louis CK’s work”. Or Woody Allen’s. Or Roman Polanski’s. Or Geoff Marcy’s. Or Colin McGinn’s. Or Kevin Spacey’s. Do you realize how long a list I could make just off the top of my head?

In a just world, no one would be able to dismiss a whole series of accusers with the magic words, “witch hunt”. It’s an interesting twist, that the more women come forward with testimony of a problem, the more likely the claim of a “witch hunt” will be invoked. The volume of the complaints is suddenly used as a reason to dismiss them altogether, rather than to provide evidence that there’s a potential problem that ought to be addressed.

So we wait and do nothing, we practice our denials, until something more substantial than the words and pain of mere women and victims of the powerful rises up. Like, for example, an investigation by the New York Times that reveals that maybe the ‘bitchez’ weren’t lyin’ all this time.

Ms. Corry, a comedian, writer and actress, has long felt haunted by her run-in with Louis C.K. In 2005, she was working as a performer and producer on a television pilot — a big step in her career — when Louis C.K., a guest star, approached her as she was walking to the set. “He leaned close to my face and said, ‘Can I ask you something?’ I said, ‘Yes,’” Ms. Corry said in a written statement to The New York Times. “He asked if we could go to my dressing room so he could masturbate in front of me.” Stunned and angry, Ms. Corry said she declined, and pointed out that he had a daughter and a pregnant wife. “His face got red,” she recalled, “and he told me he had issues.”

Yeah, he’s got issues. I’ve got issues. Everyone has issues. Most of us don’t resolve them by beckoning to the nearest woman and trying to disgust and degrade her.

And yet right now there are going to be people who rise up indignantly and self-righteously declare their rational skepticism — they will doubt the accusers. They will doubt the many accusers who have everything to lose by pointing a finger at the powerful patron who could do so much for their careers. They will not doubt the wealthy and successful man who had the opportunity to abuse his power.

We had a pretty good election night yesterday, but I don’t want anyone to forget what should be driving you right now, and that is a righteous anger. Read Katha Pollitt about her reaction to the past year.

But the main difference is that I hate people now. Well, not all people, of course. Just people who voted for Trump. People who do their own “research” on the Internet and discover there that President Obama is a Muslim and Michelle Obama is a man. People who use the n-word and can’t even spell it right, because—have you noticed?—Trump supporters can’t spell. Well-off people who only care about lowering their taxes. People who said they couldn’t vote for Hillary because of her emails. Excuse me, sir or madam, can you explain to me what an email server even is? People who didn’t believe Trump would bring back coal or build the wall or Make America Great Again, but just wanted to blow things up. Congratulations! We are all living in the minefield you have made.

I know what you’re thinking: you are the problem, Katha, alienating Trump voters with your snobbish liberal elitism and addiction to “identity politics.” Yes, I wanted them to have health care and child care and good schools and affordable college and real sex education and access to abortion and a much higher minimum wage. And yes, I wanted the wealthy to pay more taxes to provide for it all. Obviously, this offended the pride of the stalwart, mostly white citizens of Trumplandia, possibly because a good proportion of white people would rather not have something if black people get to have it, too. As for pussy-grabbing, sheesh! Men will be men, get over yourselves, ladies. None of that is “identity politics,” though. It is just America.

You know exactly how the defenders of the status quo will respond: sit down, be nice and polite, you might annoy the regressives/alt-right, and their anger will be more defensible than yours. We’re already composing our excuses for them that will consist of blaming you.

Lindy West is also rather angry.

Just this week, Juli Briskman, a government contractor, lost her job after a photo of her flipping off the presidential motorcade went viral. Solange, Britney Spears, Sinead O’Connor, the Dixie Chicks, Rosie O’Donnell — I struggle to think of women who lost their tempers in public and didn’t face ridicule, temporary ruin, or both. And we don’t even have to be angry to be called angry. Accusations of being an “angry black woman” chased Michelle Obama throughout her tenure at the White House, despite eight years of unflappable poise (black women suffer disproportionately under this paradigm). The decades-long smearing of Hillary Clinton as an unhinged shrew culminated one year ago today when, despite maintaining a preternatural calm throughout the most brutal campaign in living memory, she lost the election to masculinity’s apoplectic id.

Like every other feminist with a public platform, I am perpetually cast as a disapproving scold. But what’s the alternative? To approve? I do not approve.

Not only are women expected to weather sexual violence, intimate partner violence, workplace discrimination, institutional subordination, the expectation of free domestic labor, the blame for our own victimization, and all the subtler, invisible cuts that undermine us daily, we are not even allowed to be angry about it.

Ah, yes. Have you ever noticed how Social Justice Warriors in general get chastised for being “disapproving scolds”? How dare we publicly criticize Nazis and misogynists, as if we think we’re better than them! Defending people who want to murder and deport people, or want the right to batter their wives, is better virtue signaling, because the anti-SJWs are so noble that they defend the free speech rights of woman-hating skinheads.

That rage will be used to excuse assault. Take the case of Aisha Walker, a woman who saw a drunk man accosting another young woman, and she chose to stand between them, a brave act. But then another man, a bystander, came to the aid…of the drunk.

A third passenger got involved, Walker wrote, telling her and the other man that they were both being stupid. When she asked him why it was stupid to stand up for a woman being harassed, he became angry.

The bystander began swearing and shouting that he would be happy to “step off the bus” to deal with her.

Walker said when she asked what that would prove, the man punched her “directly in the mouth at full force.”

He broke many of her teeth, requiring a lot of dental work. But he made his point: anger at oppression is a greater crime to these people than the oppression itself. Moral clarity is an affront to people who want the liberty to be selfish.

Did you know the way to deal with a man? Debate is only a prelude to punching his lights out.

I know how to stand up to a man who’s unfairly trespassing against me, and the reason I know that is because the parameters for my resistance are quite well-defined … We talk, we argue, we push and then it becomes physical. Right?

You see, if that’s how an argument is supposed to reasonably progress, then it becomes problematic to argue with a woman, because you know that eventually, according to the rules, rational dissent must culminate in socking her in the jaw, and that’s not nice to do to a woman. Perfectly OK to do that to a man, of course.

In case you’re wondering who would make such a ludicrous argument, it’s from Jordan Peterson, clinical psychologist, darling of the alt-right, and Canadian. I’ve never been in such a situation, except for that time in 7th grade when I was beat up for my lunch money, and even then, I didn’t get to do any punching because I was on my back with the wind knocked out of me.

I don’t know, man, that’s such an un-Canadian attitude Peterson has got, they might have to revoke his citizenship.

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Speaking of horrible people, you might want to read this post about Joshie Berger, formerly a popular participant at the Amazing Meeting, loud skeptic, and apparently an acolyte of Peterson. It seems his way of dealing with his girlfriend was to smash her face. If that has already ruined your breakfast, here’s another problem person: DJ Grothe. Grothe didn’t punch anyone, fortunately, but in his role as the TAM organizer at the time, he reportedly silenced people who complained about Berger’s general behavior. Because, I guess, that was his job, to keep everything running smoothly for abusers.

Fuck it. I’m going to Minneapolis today, to hang out with good people and get off the internet for a while.

Helen Lewis has a few words for the men of journalism (which also apply to every other area). It’s easy to deplore acts you haven’t done, but that by your behavior you may have enabled.

The response to the Weinstein coverage has borne this out. Over the last week, my phone has lit up with female journalists silently screaming: have you seen him decrying Weinstein? The hypocrite!

In private, there has been a cathartic outpouring of Bastards We Have Known. The colleague who texted a friend of mine, Ros Urwin of the Standard, promising that “before I die, I will kiss every freckle on your lips”. The man who told my colleague Amelia Tait that she’d have to have sex to get ahead. The sub-editor who stalked a junior member of his team, turning up outside restaurants she was at with her boyfriend. The magazine journalist who developed an obsession with a female colleague and put her on late shifts to ruin her social life. The arts journalist who would take out new colleagues for a “welcome drink” at his London club – where they’d discover he had a room booked upstairs. The guy who put his hands down a colleague’s trousers at the Christmas party. More than one man in journalism, feeling spurned, has taken to ringing his love interest’s doorbell late at night.

Those are just the overt acts of egregious harassment. She also points out that a casual boy’s club atmosphere of little crappy jokes and disparagement in bad taste fuels the confidence of the worst offenders, and that we men all contribute in various ways to a culture of entitled oppression. Have I ever actively harassed anyone? No. But have I ever trivialized the atmosphere of sexual exploitation with a lazy joke or blithe acceptance of the status quo? Yes. Should I change? Yes. Will I change? I’ll try my hardest. You have permission to slap me when I screw up.

Exactly right.

Emma Thompson tells us the Harvey Weinstein allegations are just the tip of the iceberg of a wider and systemic problem in Hollywood pic.twitter.com/VDxswrUP5Z

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) October 12, 2017