“There’s roadkill, yeah,” conceded one Democratic woman in Congress. “People are being forced to resign whose conduct was not as bad as other people’s.” And she believes that a lot more missile-fearing legislators will quietly slink away, opening up a lot of seats for women and minorities and a younger generation.
There is rough justice in this initial barrage of j’accuses, before people work out a hierarchy of sins and due process. That may stem from the decades when so many women accusers — from Anita Hill to Bill Clinton’s inamorata and prey — were treated as collateral damage, smeared and pushed aside so that the careers of powerful men could be preserved.
For the first time, as they shudder watching the reputations and livelihoods of so many high-profile men disappear in a blink, many men are paying close attention to women’s stories of being manhandled and minimized, out of self-preservation if not sympathy.
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