Tyler Cowen on Kavanaugh: asymmetry between male and female perceptions

There is an asymmetry between male and female perceptions.

Most men are not abusers, yet very large numbers of women have been abused. So if a man is an abuser, there is a good chance he has abused a fair number of women.

That means many well-meaning men experience sexual abuse as a relatively rare phenomenon. They haven’t done it, and most of their male friends haven’t either. At the same time, most women have abuse, rape or #MeToo stories, and they experience these phenomena as relatively common and often life-altering. Probably they also have heard multiple such stories from their female friends. This structural asymmetry of perspectives is crucial to understanding the discourse and the often fundamental differences in opinion.

Our criminal justice system isn’t very good.

Whether you think Kavanaugh is innocent or guilty, we can all agree there are large numbers of intelligent people on both sides of the debate, and even after a week of intense national scrutiny there is no resolution. The reality is that ordinary accused people, who are basically presumed guilty by the criminal justice system, don’t receive very fair judgments. And if Kavanaugh is innocent, might we hope that this experience will make him more sympathetic to the plight of the unjustly imprisoned and accused?

The passage above is posted at Marginal Revolution (where there is also discussion). Complete column at Bloomberg (also has discussion, but not as much as at MR).