Video summary
Louise Perry addresses the fallout of the #MeToo movement, noting a decade later that many men are now reluctant to approach women due to fear of false accusations. She argues that while this caution is understandable for some, it primarily affects decent men who were never aggressors in the first place, whereas actual perpetrators have not changed their behavior at all. Perry illustrates this using David Buss's concept from *The Dangerous Things*, which posits that sexual assault is often committed by a small number of repeat offenders rather than being distributed evenly across many individuals. Consequently, broad social interventions like #MeToo shift the entire normal distribution curve regarding male approachability without effectively targeting or stopping the specific men who cause harm, leaving women's experiences largely unchanged while creating unnecessary barriers for ordinary interactions. The discussion extends to how predators identify potential victims, with Perry referencing studies where offenders consistently selected similar types of women as targets regardless of their attire or location. She emphasizes that while factors like clothing or walking alone in dark alleys should not be blamed on the victim, there is a reality regarding "stated and revealed preferences" that cannot be ignored; predators do see certain behaviors or presentations as viable prey. Perry criticizes the tendency to tell girls they can behave however they want without understanding these risks, arguing that we must honestly prepare daughters with practical safety advice—such as not returning to a random man's house alone—that was common sense until recently but is now often suppressed in progressive circles for fear of appearing victim-blaming. Perry introduces the concept of "luxury beliefs," suggesting that many modern feminist critiques focus on issues affecting privileged women while ignoring the harsh realities faced by those without support networks, such as underclass women whose partners may have been abusive due to a lack of positive male role models in their upbringing. She draws a parallel between this dynamic and C.S. Chesterton's fence principle: progressives often want to tear down fences (like chivalry or traditional gender roles) without understanding why they exist, whereas conservatives seek to understand the function before deciding whether removal is necessary. Perry argues that we lack adequate vocabulary for behaviors that are legal but morally bad on a first date, leading to an over-reliance on the binary of "consensual" versus "non-consensual," which fails to capture nuances like ungentlemanly conduct or subtle forms of aggression. Ultimately, Perry advocates for reinstating chivalry not as patronizing behavior but as a necessary protection given the stark physical and psychological asymmetry between men and women; she notes that 99% of men can physically overpower 99% of women with bare hands alone. She asserts there is a direct moral line from holding doors open to preventing domestic violence, framing these acts as part of a continuous spectrum where protecting women is in their best interest despite occasional feelings of being patronized. Perry concludes that the dissolution of traditional family structures and technological shifts like the Pill have been more significant drivers of social change than intellectual movements alone, urging society to recognize material realities over abstract ideologies when addressing issues of safety and gender dynamics.
Read the full video transcript
what do you think the Fallout of me too
has been now approaching 10 years
hence I often hear for men that they are
now more reluctant to go up to a woman
in a bar or whatever that there's this
problem of fear of being falsely accused
of something and so I think I mean I
believe them you know if that if some
men are experiencing that I'm sure
though what's gone on is that the men
who were already sexually aggressive and
likely to actually be you know me to
perpetrators haven't changed their
behavior at all and the men whove
started being really careful were
probably fine to begin with if you were
a raper
the social media campaign probably
they've got a hashtag on Twitter I'd
better stop going around raping yeah
which is I mean there's
a I
always I wrote about in my first book
and it applies to this as to loads of
things the problem of normal
distribution where you have some trait
which is arranged on a bell curve and
the problem is that if you apply some
intervention so whatever that is like a
a social movement like me too or some
policy change or whatever probably what
you want to do is you want to actually
Target one of the tals you want to like
oh so we've got the you know we've got
bell curve of sexual aggression and
there's this this like most aggressive
end who are causing no end of harm what
we want to do is make them stop but it's
you can't just apply an intervention to
that to that point on the normal
distribution like it's going to shift in
one way or another and everyone is going
to be affected you're smearing the
entire group with the same solution so
what you end up with is moving the
threshold for being like reluctant to go
up to a woman in a bar or whatever
slightly just to mean that like some of
the nice guys are not doing it but that
doesn't actually improve it doesn't
affect the rapists and it doesn't
improve women's experience of it David
bus's book bad men talks about uh it's
one man doing a thousand sexual assaults
not a thousand men doing one sexual
assault you know to repeat offenders
over and over and over and over again uh
and unfortunately as well repeat victims
there is something about the way that
again this isn't victim blaming but it
is like something about the way that
women hold themselves where they showed
this to I think maybe criminals in
prison or assaulters or assault yeah men
that had assaulted people and showed
them a number of women walking and they
asked them to pick which one they would
attack if they were going to and they
converged on the same women uh so you
know for all that we can say you know
it's not about wearing the skirt it
shouldn't be about being in the dark
alley at the wrong time all the rest of
it like
correct but there is something about
particular women
that causes predators to see them as
viable
prey does that excuse it no does that
you know is that them choosing it also
no MH but like this is just the way that
the world appears to be it's ruthless
yeah and it drives me mad that we tell
lies to girls all the time about this
because we're so desperate not to appear
to be victim blaming that we'll say oh
no you can you know you can behave like
a man you can do whatever you want go
back to some random guy's house it'll be
fine and then when it inevitably isn't
fine we're like oh well you know he
shouldn't have he shouldn't have been
social aggressive I was like yes
obviously
but we don't you know I would love to
just like delete every rapist from the
world all at once I can't do that like
if the advice that I'm going to be
giving my daughters is is going to be
unfortunately different from the advice
I'll give my
sons what would be the advice that You'
give them like for instance don't go
back to a random man's house that you've
just met like basic okay like complete
considered to be completely common
sensical up until up until even like the
1980s you know this is like recent stuff
but basically unsayable now in feminist
circles at least except everyone quietly
says it you know
well again it's the stated and revealed
preferences thing like how many parents
that will prze about this on CNN and say
that you know we shouldn't be telling
women oh so you're saying that we should
just accept the fact that men are going
to do this it should be it shouldn't be
that women should change their actions
men should change their behavior okay
what did you tell your 17-year-old
daughter to do last weekend did you did
you say make sure that you text me when
you get home make sure that you're home
before 11 Etc don't get an unlicensed
taxi whatever yeah St didn't preferences
yeah and what drives me bananas is that
we there are some girls who don't
actually have parents or friends or
whoever who are privately telling them
the truth you know all they get all they
hear is is is is the public misdirection
oh this is like the luxury beliefs of me
too in a way yeah and so I I feel as if
actually we have a duty people who who
are speaking publicly to tell those
girls the truth on the assumption that
they're not going to hear it from anyone
else the cultural surrogate mothers in a
way
yeah you've got this line between
consensual and good which I think
relates to me too as well what's that I
think that a lot of what so I mean
there's a lot of things that came under
the me too Banner um some of it was just
unambiguously criminal and you know
Harvey Weinstein or whatever got sent to
prison for for criminal acts a lot of
what came up though a lot of the stories
that got shared with things that weren't
actually strictly criminal they were
just it was just like bad behavior it
was behavior that actually in another
era you probably would have been
probably would have been called
ungentlemanly or something like that but
but that vocabulary isn't available
to a sort of contemporary feminist who's
really bought into the to to the sex
positive message and so they'll tend to
just talk about things being consensual
or not consensual and actually the
consensual not consensual bar is is like
a low one it's a legal bar it's not
actually a moral bar really like there's
a lot of there are a lot of things that
a man can do on a first date or whatever
that are legal but are
bad plenty but we don't really have the
vocabulary to describe them which is why
I try and make you know like the
feminist case for chivalry we shouldn't
have got rid of that as a concept like
when you have as Stark a physical
difference and psychological differences
between the
Sexes you know 99% of men can kill 99%
of women with their bare hands and not
vice versa we have to operate with that
with
recognition chivalry in those
circumstances is obviously in women's
interests even if occasionally it will
mean being feeling slightly patronized
like who cares I'm so happy to have my
the door held open for me and my bags
carried it's completely fine if it means
that someone's not going to assault me
yeah yeah I mean this is I I quote you
and Mary about this all the time that it
is a straight line from you should hold
the door open for a woman to you
shouldn't beat your wife it is one just
continuous women are worthy of
protection and there is an asymmetry
between what men and women can do and
again Rob Henderson's coming a couple of
days later than you it's like luxury
beliefs all over again like the women
who come from societies where their
husbands already knew that beating your
wife would be a bad idea or they had the
support networks where that wouldn't be
accepted were trying to
deconstruct a support structure that was
needed for the underclass women whose
husbands had grown up without a father
and whose stepdad had beaten them who
just presumed that the way that you was
supposed to be in a relationship was to
hit your
wife yeah I mean I just like cheston's
fence like the wisdom of it you know
this this idea from G Cheston you know
you come across a fence in a field you
don't know what it's there for the the
progressive the reformer whatever
vocabulary he uses says we don't need
this fence let's tear it down whereas
the conservative says no let's find out
what it's for and then maybe we might
tear it down if it turns out that it
really isn't necessary I mean just the
whole last hundred years has been like
non indication of chesteron Spence
principal yeah and and I and I honestly
think that most of it actually is to do
with technology like much as I love to
to complain about my political enemies
like actually the main thing that's
changed for people has not
been the intellectuals of the 1960s it's
been
um like the dissolution of the family
has a much to do with the pill as it
does with anything any feminist has ever
said you know like the real I I'm I'm
I'm very sort of materialist in this
sense I think the real engine of history
is is technology or as Mary Harrington
our friend likes to say it's um material
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