During the confirmation hearings for the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Megan Fox wrote two online opinion pieces:



• How to 'Christine Blasey Ford-Proof' Your Son – preparing one’s son to avoid or at least cope with a false accusation of sexual misconduct

• How to 'Christine Blasey Ford-Proof' Your Daughter – teaching one’s daughter not to make false accusations and how to avoid situations which might tempt her to make a false accusation



This book, a polemic if I ever saw one,

During the confirmation hearings for the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Megan Fox wrote two online opinion pieces:



• How to 'Christine Blasey Ford-Proof' Your Son – preparing one’s son to avoid or at least cope with a false accusation of sexual misconduct

• How to 'Christine Blasey Ford-Proof' Your Daughter – teaching one’s daughter not to make false accusations and how to avoid situations which might tempt her to make a false accusation



This book, a polemic if I ever saw one, expands on this work and consists of three sections:



• A section documenting historical examples of women making false accusations

• A section documenting recent examples of women making false accusations

• A section with recommendations on how to cope with and hopefully turn around current trends to uncritically accept accusations of sexual misconduct without proper investigation



The book is a challenge to the Me Too premise that women should be believed when they make accusations of sexual misconduct. This is not to say that it we should disbelieve them. The author, a woman, is not stupid. Rather, accusations should be taken seriously and investigated, with conclusions drawn based on the evidence. Why not just believe women? Because they are not perfect beings who exist on a higher plane of existence than men. They are capable of being mistaken and even lying, and punitive action based on uncritical belief in such instances can cause grave miscarriages of justice. This is why most of the book is dedicated to examples of women making false accusations.



It should be obvious that I agree wholeheartedly with Ms. Fox’s conclusions. That said, I do have some issues with the book. First, two of the examples in section 1, on historical examples, uses literature as a basis. Lady Macbeth is not a historical character, although I understand why she would be a tempting example. Fiction often imitates real life. As I have repeatedly stated, if fiction writers didn’t have reality to give them ideas, they would be totally screwed. In other words, Lady Macbeth may have been a fictional character, but she probably had a basis in historical fact. I am somewhat uncomfortable with “probably” being used as a justification for Ms. Fox’s arguments. A second issue is her use of the media slander of the Covington Catholic school boys as an example of women making false accusations. The false accuser was a man. The women accusers to whom Ms. Fox was referring were media personalities gleefully relaying the slanderous accusation against them. I completely agree that these media personalities should not have done this, but to use this as an example of women making false accusations is a stretch. They didn’t make it up; they passed it on, and not because of their gender, but because of their political bias.



My final observation about the book is that no one can bash women like a woman. As a man, I am conditioned to be a provider and protector. Ms. Fox’s rhetorical choices in this polemic were quite jarring to read. I agree with much of what she has to say but would be exceedingly uncomfortable saying it that way myself. For that matter, a man would probably get into a lot of trouble for doing just that. A man can’t get away with it, but a woman can. I guess women need to check their privilege.

