I really don't understand why people are losing their jobs or being fired over some of these allegations. I'm not talking about cases where there are accusations of the sort leveled against Cosby of Spacey, but more the kind of accusation against Hardwick. I mean this on every level; I don't even understand why AMC is suspending Hardwick, even from the point of view of publicity. Dykstra isn't an employee of AMC, and honestly, this is probably doing more to generate publicity for the Talking Dead (which I'd heard mentioned in passing perhaps once before in my life) than anything AMC could ask for. Even if everything alleged is true, what the hell does that have to do with Hardwick's work?
I read Dykstra's article on Medium. I'm going to be charitable and assume that everything she says is true, and that she bears no responsibility for the dysfunction she describes in their relationship. Please note that she admits to cheating on him, although she doesn't describe it in those terms. But even if you accept her story at face value, nothing mentioned in it, except for the accusations of blacklisting (depending on how it was done), could conceivably open Hardwick up to civil liability, let alone criminal charges.
If she is giving the gospel truth, Hardwick is certainly excessively controlling, emotionally cold, manipulative, and a sexual leech. In the broadest sense of the term, he is abusive. There used to be words for people like that: cad, for one. But consider; it's not illegal to be a shitty and inconsiderate boyfriend. She doesn't describe him as physically abusing her, physically restraining her, or sexually assaulting her, as that term is legally understood. So she has no case against him for that in a court of law.
So why the hell should he be suspended from his job over this? Cards on the table; I think the current paradigm for sexual relations between men and women in the West is dysfunctional. We don't have a paradigm outside of consent for describing sexual behaviour which we don't like, which means we reduce every sexual situation to the legal question of whether there was consent, which leads to the problem of regret over sex becoming sexual assault the next morning. Men and women don't have a consistent framework for how they are supposed to interact with each other outside of the bounds of legality, which is insane, because it forces the law to squeeze way tighter onto behaviour than it should. The law is not a sufficiently discerning tool to do this.
Some men and women who are very socially adept can navigate this world without issue, but overall, it is bad for men, bad for women, bad for families, and bad for the children with the misfortune of growing up in these families. So I agree that, if Hardwick is the kind of man Dykstra says he is, it would be better if he wasn't a controlling asshole. But I honestly feel like a certain subset of #MeToo is women just being incredibly dissatisfied with the landscape of modern relationships and punishing men for it when they have the chance. Fair enough; if you feel like you've been used for sex and the world offers you an easy weapon, you'd have to be a saint not to feel the temptation.
Side note: there is a weird undercurrent of moral panic to #MeToo. These things routinely sweep America every generation or so. This one is particularly weird in that it seems to have at its roots a desire to punish men for failing to be kind and considerate lovers, which is like the weirdest mix of hippy-free love bullshit and puritanism I've ever considered. But since #MeToo is happening, we need to address these issues.
So here are the important questions I don't feel like anyone is seriously considering:
1) What (if anything) should Hardwick's punishment be, if Dykstra is telling the truth? Criminal proceedings? Civil Proceedings? Job loss? Social shaming? What is the punishment fitting the crime?
2) What share (if any) of the blame does Dykstra deserve for staying in a relationship with Hardwick for three years?
3) What is the appropriate venue for airing these sorts of grievances?
4) What standard of proof should we require before punishing someone (if any?)
5) What (if anything) can/should a man do to avoid ending up in the sort of situation guys like Hardwick or Ansari (if you remember that story) found themselves in?
6) What (if anything) can/should a woman do to avoid ending up in Dykstra's position?
7) What (if anything) can/should you do if you observe this sort of relationship, as a third party?
8) What (if anything) can/should society at large do in these sorts of situations?
Rant over.
