1. there was a real and direct power differential, which moves this very fast into „inappropriate, possibly criminal“ territory
2. her allies defend her on the grounds of „we don‘t know anything about this issue, but we‘re vouching for her character“
And most obviously
3. those two points are exactly what happens when a female student accuses a male teacher. Seems people behave just the same as everybody else, in a tribal way.
This case is rare because it's rare for the woman to be in the position of power and the man in the subordinate position.
In any of these cases, we need to take the accusations seriously, which is what #MeToo is about.
Let me reiterate that. #MeToo isn't about women vs. men. It's about acknowledging the abuse of power to harass, humiliate, intimidate, and violate. It's about resisting the knee-jerk reactions in defense of people who abuse power. It's about fixing the dynamics that have historically caused victims to avoid speaking out because doing so is more likely to destroy the victim's career than the abuser's.
This may just be due to unfortunate phrasing, but is it really rare? In this case the roles are adviser-student, and at least anecdotally it doesn’t seem that rare for an adviser-student relationship to be a female-in-power one. We just don’t hear often about abuse in such relationships—likely because it doesn’t happen as much.
(If you meant that it’s rare for the woman to be in a position of power in #metoo cases then I’d not disagree, otherwise I find that specific statement surprising and possibly misrepresenting reality in an unfortunate way.)
That aside, I’m mostly in agreement with the sentiment.
People are so afraid to find that not all humans are equal in every respect other than body that they are willing to stop, mute, censor any and all discussion on the subject and even block research into human nature rather than face the danger of having to deal with this (granted, difficult) issue.
> Seems people behave just the same as everybody else, in a tribal way.
Supporting someone you believe innocent should not be derided as "tribal".
The problem, I think, is that plainly believing someone is innocent just because you happen to work with them or think they're moral is not useful, and you should probably keep it to yourself.