The faux-feminist man who is accused of being a secret predator is by now, after the revelations of the Me Too movement, a familiar figure. A few years ago, when Me Too was raging through Hollywood, former liberal darlings Louis C.K. and Joss Whedon saw their whole legacies re-evaluated after being accused of sexual misconduct on C.K.s part and bullying on Whedons. (Whedon has denied all the allegations.) Now, two new famous feminist men have been accused of gendered misconduct but these revelations come at a moment when our culture appears to be far less interested in performing a reckoning. The most serious of the new stories are the accusations against Neil Gaiman, a prolific and beloved figure in the fantasy and comic book world. Gaiman built his career on the idea that he was an ally to women, but last year, a podcast from the UK-based Tortoise Media accused him of physical and emotional abuse and sexual assault. Now, those claims have been amplified by a deeply reported and detailed feature in New York magazine alleging that Gaiman abused multiple vulnerable young women over whom he was in a position of power. Gaiman, in a post on his website, maintains that his relationships with these women were consensual.Meanwhile, actor, director, and professional male feminist Justin Baldoni has been accused by actress Blake Lively of sexually harassing her on set walking into her trailer while she was naked, improvising kissing scenes, and discussing his history of porn addiction. According to a lawsuit from Lively and an accompanying story in the New York Times, Baldoni feared that Lively would go public with her complaints, so he hired a PR firm that buried Lively under a wave of sexist criticism. (Baldoni has said through a lawyer that Livelys allegations are categorically false and disputed her characterization as self-serving; he is suing the New York Times over its reporting, alleging that it was Lively who mistreated him.)The accusations against Gaiman are much more serious and violent than the accusations against Baldoni. Yet both men find themselves in the same familiar place we saw with other faux feminists. They built their public images on being the good ones in a misogynistic world: men who understood that other men were violent and untrustworthy, who seemed committed to doing the best they could not to fall into the same traps. Now, they stand accused of using those long-crafted images as public shields for their private misbehavior.The question that remains is: What will happen to the feminist men who lose their feminist cred in this time of Me Too backlash? What was all that feminist capital worth to begin with? How Neil Gaiman and Justin Baldoni built their images as male feministsThe reputations Gaiman and Baldoni built as feminists go back years. Both of them were careful to be nuanced about their status as male feminists, to appear to make room for their own errors, and to commit to being better than their fellow men.As far as I can see, being in society on this planet at this time makes you part of the patriarchy because thats the world were in, wrote Gaiman on his popular Tumblr in 2021. You dont get to leave it or not be part of it by announcing youre leaving, any more than you leave a society by announcing that you dont want to follow its laws. Instead, you do what you can, both personally and in society, to improve things, and you hope. In his fiction, Gaiman appeared to be at least trying to walk the walk. He populated his books with powerful women who dont suffer fools. He tackled subjects like sexual violence at a time when they felt taboo. Even Gaimans fans could acknowledge that for all his effort, he wasnt always all that good at writing women he seemed reluctant to center them in most of his stories and was always writing detailed descriptions of their breasts. Still, most readers agreed that he was well-intentioned.Neil strikes me as a representation of the saying perfect is the enemy of good, mused a commenter two years ago on the subreddit Men Writing Women, where women gather to mock bad descriptions of women by male writers. I personally love his writing and I dont think he does anything egregious that should earn him a place here. That said he has his shortcomings but I think a lot of people ignore those because the stories are so great (if you like his style). Meanwhile, Baldoni built his name as the romantic lead of the much-acclaimed CW show Jane the Virgin, playing a hero who happily supported his girlfriends dreams. On the side, he became more or less a professional male feminist. He delivered a viral TED talk in 2017 on the problem of toxic masculinity. The TED talk became a limited-run talk show, Man Enough, the same year, and then a podcast and a book, also titled Man Enough, in 2021. Ive had to take a real, honest look at the ways that Ive unconsciously been hurting the women in my life, and its ugly, Baldoni said in that viral TED talk. He went on to describe his great sin: His wife had told him that sometimes, without noticing it, he talked over her.So here I am doing my part, trying to be a feminist, amplifying the voices of women around the world, Baldoni went on, and yet at home, I am using my louder voice to silence the woman I love the most. So I had to ask myself a tough question: Am I man enough to just shut the hell up and listen?He went on to describe his great sin: His wife had told him that sometimes, without noticing it, he talked over her.Baldoni positioned himself as a man so enlightened that the worst thing he did was sometimes accidentally interrupt his wife. Gaiman positioned himself as a man enlightened enough that he knew that he, too, must be poisoned by the patriarchy, but who was nonetheless determined to do what he could to stand up against it. The new accusations against both Gaiman and Baldoni offer counternarratives to these stories.The New York magazine article describes Gaiman as allegedly performing deeply violent and degrading sexual acts on unwilling women, using his celebrity and wealth to exert emotional and financial pressure on them. Moreover, it includes allegations that on multiple occasions, Gaiman initiated sexual encounters with some of these women in the same room as his young son, and that he seemed amused when his son began to ape his language, referring to one of the women as a slave and demanding she address him as master. (Gaiman denies these claims.)He is using his male feminist persona not just as a shield but as bait.In this version of the story, Gaiman is no longer the male feminist trying his best and now and then falling short of perfection. No longer is he a man doing what he can, both personally and in society, to improve things. Instead, he is allegedly implicating his own son in acts of sexual violence. And he is using his male feminist persona not just as a shield but as bait.In the New York magazine investigation, two of Gaimans accusers use the same metaphor to describe how he used his own well-meaning public persona to draw in his alleged victims. Two of the women, who have never spoken to each other, compared him to an anglerfish, the deep-sea predator that uses a bulb of bioluminescence to lure prey into its jaws, writes New York magazine journalist Lila Shapiro. Instead of a light, one says, he would dangle a floppy-haired, soft-spoken British guy. Meanwhile, Livelys lawsuit and a preceding complaint filed with the California Civil Rights Department alleges that Baldoni hired a public relations firm for the express purpose of preventing Lively from speaking out about his own bad behavior. Far from being the man wracked with guilt over his own anti-feminist microaggressions, Livelys account suggests that Baldoni paid a crisis PR firm to orchestrate a smear campaign against her, taking advantage of the publics own rampant misogyny to do so. Baldoni, for his part, has made his own allegations against Lively in his lawsuit against the Times, alleging that she showed a pattern of vindictiveness on set and took key events out of context to forward a favorable narrative. Baldoni seems ready to fight to preserve his old reputation, but hes been dropped by his talent agency and his podcast co-host (and former Vox correspondent) Liz Plank has left the show. Gaiman, who has denied that his relationships with his accusers were abusive, has reportedly hired the same crisis management team used by Prince Andrew and Danny Masterson. Meanwhile, a number of productions based on his work have been halted or canceled. (Gaiman has not published a full-length solo-authored novel since 2013, but many of his books are currently or recently getting adapted for both stage and screen.) In the progressive science fiction circles where his work was revered, hes been denounced. Aside from the personal statement published on his website, W.W. Norton, which worked with Gaiman on one of his books, has said they will not publish him again. HarperCollins, his primary publisher in the US, has said only that it has no new books by Gaiman scheduled. As we prepare to enter the second Trump era, the future of these two men and what it demonstrates about where we are in our cultural reckoning with sexual assault and sexual harassment is yet to be seen.What is a sex scandal worth during a Me Too backlash?While the Me Too movement was first developed by activist Tarana Burke in 2006, it exploded into the mainstream in 2017 after producer Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual violence by multiple famous actresses. In large part, however, the movement was less about Weinstein than it was a reaction to the first election of Donald Trump, who at the time had been accused of sexual assault by multiple woman but had never faced legal investigation into his alleged crimes. As the movement burned hot and angry, one powerful man after another was accused of sexual misdeeds. Many had their reputations destroyed. Some lost their jobs. A bare few faced trial, and even fewer than that faced jail time. Joss Whedon and Louis C.K. were both removed from high-profile projects, although C.K. continues to tour in front of sold-out venues after taking a year-long break.We are no longer in 2017. In 2025, we are squarely stuck in the midst of Me Too backlash. Donald Trump has now been found civilly liable for sexual abuse, but he is about to take office as president for the second time. Roe v. Wade is no longer the law of the land. Social media is teeming with reactionary influencers, with tradwives and looksmaxxers and manosphere bros who teach teen boys to crow, Your body, my choice at their female classmates. Democratic leadership in Congress has concluded that its not politically useful to complain about the number of alleged sexual predators in Trumps proposed Cabinet. And a number of the men whose alleged bad behavior was exposed by Me Too are, newly emboldened, beginning to creep back into the public eye.Brett Ratner, accused of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment in 2017, is directing the high-profile new documentary on Melania Trump, in his first directorial credit since 2015 (Ratner denied all of the allegations at the time and was never charged). Michael Fassbender, who was accused of domestic violence in 2010 and stopped acting during the height of Me Too, returned to Hollywood in 2023 (Fassbender has never commented on the allegations). Former Sen. Al Franken, accused of nonconsensual groping and forcible kissing in 2017, had a stint as guest host of The Daily Show, also in 2023. (Franken issued statements apologizing in some instances and saying that he does not remember other alleged incidents.) Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, accused of sexual harassment in 2020, is now leading the polls to become New Yorks next mayor. (Cuomo denied all allegations and the charges against him were all dropped or dismissed.) In this climate, what was the feminist capital Gaiman and Baldoni built even for? It continues to depreciate.Allegations of sexual misconduct are certainly no longer disqualifying for being a figure in public life. They can even be a sign of your anti-woke bona fides. Complaining about gendered violence means that you are doing identity politics, alienating young people ever further toward the right.Hollywood and fantasy publishing, where Gaiman dominated are more liberal environments than Trumps Washington. Still, blockbusters are increasingly abandoning liberal messaging on issues like feminism, and many of the worlds biggest tech platforms are run by billionaires who keep swinging right along with the rest of the country. In this climate, what was the feminist capital Gaiman and Baldoni built even for? It continues to depreciate.We dont know where they go from here, whether they will disappear for a few months or even years and then stage comebacks, either quietly or with fanfare. But whatever they do, their fates will tell us a lot about how deep the Me Too backlash has gone, and how strong Trumps hold on the culture really is. 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