My social media feed has, for two weeks, been a flurry of commentary about Brett Kavanaugh and sexual assault. Can we believe Dr. Ford? Do women lie about rape? Do men live in fear of rape accusations? The endless debate conceals a more fundamental question: Can women be believed?
That’s what this is really all about. At the core of concerns about whether or not women can really be believed rests the ugly truth about misogyny: the idea that maybe women aren’t fully human in the way men are. That’s the real reason we can’t believe them. If we believe women, then we have to accept that our society has willfully and deliberately made their lives terrifying. And we have to, for the first time ever, prioritize women’s safety over men’s desire to do what they please.
What a Trip to the Grocery Store Teaches About Sexism
Earlier this week, my toddler daughter and I went to the grocery store. As is often the case, we were followed by a man who persistently asked, “How you doing?” I pretended not to hear him. My daughter hasn’t yet learned to fear men so she waved and said hi.
That was his in. He approached, began yammering about my appearance and trying to touch both my daughter and me.
I didn’t scream or call the police. I didn’t tell him to go away or launch into a diatribe about sexism. I gave him five minutes of my time. I was gracious, even submissive.
It’s not who I am. It’s who I’ve learned to be to stay safe. Had I gotten angry, I might have provoked him. He might have followed me to the parking lot, cornered me as I put my baby into the car. That’s happened before.
When I shared the story on Facebook and when I discussed it with my male friends, the men in my life all had suggestions. They would have screamed for help. They would have called the police. They would have hit the guy.
If only I had responded differently, they seemed to believe, something might have gone differently.
These are the same men who have heard me talk about sexual assault and male violence for weeks. They’ve seen and heard stories of police officers who don’t listen to women, of men who side with perpetrators. And yet many of them still believed calling the police on a man for talking to me would somehow have accomplished something. Some believed that hitting a man for talking to me would be widely viewed as an act of self-defense.
They meant well. But clearly, they’re not listening. They haven’t heard me when I’ve said that men don’t listen, that sexual assault is not taken seriously. They haven’t considered that, as someone who has endured this for my entire life, I might know more about dealing with it than they do.
So far, it seems that even when men want to help, they haven’t learned much from the #metoo movement. Societally, we just can’t overcome the notion that women can’t be believed. Women don’t make good decisions. They don’t know how to do things. They’re just less reliable.
How Many Women is One Man Worth?
When I saw Brett Kavanaugh testify last week, it was easy to imagine him assaulting someone. Anyone that angry, that aggressive, that entitled, is obviously capable of abuse. Anyone who talks over women like he did is uninterested in treating women as equals.
Yet what I saw as a clear sign of his abusive personality is what Republicans saw as a sign of his innocence. It’s baffling. That is, until we look at other high profile cases: a dozen or more accusers had to come forward before people thought Bill Cosby was guilty. Three women aren’t enough to overshadow the angry denials of Brett Kavanaugh.
Most of us struggle to name a friend or family member who has not experienced some form of sexual assault or male violence. One study found that 31% of men said they would force a woman to have sex if they could get away with it. Even when researchers used the word “rape,” 13% of men still said they’d go through with it if they could get away with it. We know that men abuse women in every imaginable context. We know it’s everywhere. Yet when presented with a story of abuse, we immediately find the man more reliable.
Exactly how many women’s word is one man’s word worth?
This week, we’ve learned that the answer is at least more than three. We’ve learned that even when a man is proven to be a liar, a drunk, and an aggressive asshole, we still think his word counts for more than that of the women who accuse him.
We—or, at least, Republicans—think it’s crueller to deny a man a job than it is to subject millions of sexual assault survivors to witnessing a sexual predator’s elevation to the Supreme Court.
Why Can’t We Believe Women?
This refusal to believe women extends far beyond sexual assault. The fundamental belief in the unreliability of women runs deep.
It’s why doctors don’t believe women who say they’re in pain.
It’s why we think we need to pass laws governing when a woman can have an abortion.
It’s why male lawmakers think they know better than skilled abortion clinic workers what women should hear before a medical procedure.
The burden of proof is always on the woman. The man is always presumed to be the victim, no matter the potential cost to women, to society, to the future.
If we believe women, then we also have to believe that the world is a dangerous place by design, and that millions of women go unheard. If we believe women, we have to change something. It’s easier to label women liars than to realize the full scope of horror sexism has wrought.
That’s why a man who sexually assaulted women will soon get to sit on the highest court in the land. He'll get to decide who is credible in the cases before him. He’ll get to decide how much autonomy women should have in decisions about their own body.
We may not ever be able to convince men to believe us—about our abuse, our pain, our lives, our needs. But there are more of us than them. We live longer. We expend much more time and energy raising the next generation. We can change things for them.
Brett Kavanaugh can make us hopeless. Or he can help us put another nail in the coffin of patriarchy. Men might not ever believe us that we matter, but we can show them that we’re not going to take it anymore.
Don’t get mad or sad. Get energized.
And please, vote. Keep voting until they’re all gone, and then keep voting until we have finally taken back what a patriarchal society continually tries to take from us.
Find out if you’re registered here. I’ve written more about what you can do to fight back against both Trump and Kavanaugh here and here.