“So now that we’re finally listening to women,†Samantha Bee says in the wake of the #MeToo movement and revelations around Harvey Weinstein and others. “Some people are asking an important question: Should we stop listening to women?†On her show Wednesday, Bee tackled the backlash to the movement, which has cropped up in the responses to the Shitty Media Men list and to an allegation against Aziz Ansari. Some men have expressed concern that the movement has turned into a witch hunt where even the smallest allegation against a man might completely ruin him, to which Bee would simply like to point out that nobody is doing that. “What many failed to understand that it doesn’t have to be rape to ruin your life, and it doesn’t have to ruin your life to be worth speaking out about,†she says. “Any kind of sexual harassment or coercion is unacceptable.â€
To the discussion around Ansari, Bee points out that it is totally reasonable to hold men who position themselves to be allies to higher standards. “People like me had to wade through a sea of prehensile dicks to build the world we now enjoy, and part of enjoying that world is setting a higher standard for sex than just ‘not rape,’ and women get to talk about it if men don’t live up to those standards, especially if a man wrote a book about how to sex good.†In other words, as she puts it, “Men, if you say you’re a feminist, then fuck like a feminist. If you don’t want to do that, take off your fucking pin because we are not your accessories.â€