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If I didn鈥檛 get asked to write this column, I probably wouldn鈥檛 realize that Lively鈥檚 鈥渃rime鈥� was to ask for fair labour practices on a film set. My editor requested that I say here I don鈥檛 know what happened for certain. But from all the information I can gather that isn鈥檛 coming from a camera-facing Gen-Z hovering in front of a still photo of Lively, this is my best guess.听听

Blake Lively, while filming the movie 鈥�It Ends With Us,鈥� complained that Justin Baldoni, her co-star and director, and the lead producer Jamie Heath 鈥渞epeatedly violated physical boundaries and made sexual and other inappropriate comments to her.鈥� The studio agreed to implement safeguards, hire an intimacy coordinator and an outside producer, and promised not to retaliate against Lively. Problem solved? No.

When the film was released, Baldoni hired a crisis PR team, just in case word got out about Lively鈥檚 complaints.

Do you know how bad things have to be in popular feminist discourse for me to read anything about a woman I refer to as 鈥渢he blond gossip girl鈥�? How dire the fight for women鈥檚 rights has to be for me to Google the name of the actor/director suing Blake Lively for defamation?

But I care because there is a proliferation of men accused of abuse who turn around and sue for defamation, putting all their power and money into ruining that women鈥檚 life. They succeed. Even Margaret Atwood supported a man who sued a woman and 19 of her acquaintances, one of whom dared to tweet that they 鈥渂elieve women鈥� without being specific about which women. Suing for defamation works. Especially now, when all the goodwill people had during the #MeToo era is gone.

So here I am on TikTok听and I notice influencers disparaging Blake Lively in a manner reminiscent of Amber Heard during her divorce from Johnny Depp. This is what crisis PR teams specialize in. A December 21 New York Times article entitled 鈥溾�樷�� confirms my hunch and goes into great detail about just what Baldoni and his PR team were willing to do to ruin Lively鈥檚 reputation.

Remember: she didn鈥檛 go to the press. All she did was make a private complaint asking that professional standards be upheld. But Baldoni is apparently so afraid of the spectre of being 鈥渃ancelled鈥� and of humiliation that he spends money ensuring her reputational downfall.

That was in December. Baldoni, instead of moving on and making another movie, is retaliating again, suing Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and the New York Times .

It was difficult to write that paragraph above without getting bored. This kind of story is mundane and yet, maddening.

Imagine accusing someone of a crime unrelated to misogyny听鈥� let鈥檚 say someone stole your car. You have a video that they stole your car. They apologized for stealing your car. They even hired a security guard and put cameras on your street to make sure your car didn鈥檛 get stolen again. A car thief would look like an idiot suing for defamation after the fact, especially since you didn鈥檛 go on social media and complain about the guy that stole your car.

But if he鈥檇 harassed a woman instead of stealing a car, he won鈥檛 look stupid. Because most people don鈥檛 believe any woman who claims harassment, no matter how much proof she has. And Blake Lively has an incredible amount of proof, as well as power and fame (she鈥檚 Taylor Swift鈥檚 best friend, after all). Will that save her reputation in the end?

In the 1990s there was a moral panic response to the brief popularity of third wave feminism, which resulted in a backlash of low-rise jeans, 鈥�Girls Gone Wild,鈥� and anorexia. It pales in comparison to what is happening now which I see as a backlash to #MeToo, with the repeal of Roe V Wade, the rise of tradwives and anti-vaccine movements, the romanticizing of the 鈥渄ivine feminine,鈥� the alpha male, and the prominence of hacks including Jordan Peterson and fourth-rate comedian-turned-sycophantic-podcaster Joe Rogan, both capturing the minds of so many who used to consider themselves progressive.

All social movements that catch fire in the mainstream are clumsy and imperfect and #MeToo was no exception. In the 1990s we had Antioch College鈥檚 consent policy that went too far and is routinely mocked now by most reasonable people. But what we forget to historicize is that before that clumsiness, the term date rape didn鈥檛 even exist. It seems like everyone only speaks about #MeToo or Time’s Up from the perspective that it went too far, but no one remembers how little we used to speak about harassment at all, except in whisper networks. 听听

I have lived long enough now to see feminism and queer/trans rights carve out gains and then have them rolled back. But I鈥檝e never seen violence and vitriol to the extent I am seeing now. Misogyny is winning. And Baldoni probably will too听鈥� even against Taylor Swift鈥檚 best friend.