The Braindead Megaphone

“The Other Whisper Network” [Essay, March] is a rehash of Katie Roiphe’s decades-old argument that women are prone to hysterical overreactions to male sexual behavior. In the Nineties, she suggested that women exaggerated the problem of date rape. Today, she claims that “Twitter feminists” exaggerate the problem of sexual harassment and silence those who challenge them.

Roiphe uses anonymous sources to support her position, obfuscates events, and often mischaracterizes competing views. Her treatment of Rebecca Solnit is exemplary in this respect. On the basis only of select passages from a 2014 broadcast interview, Roiphe claims that Solnit…