Before Harvey Weinstein or Roy Moore, before Brock Turner, before Rolling Stone screwed up a story at the University of Virginia, before the Obama administration tried to improve policies on how rape cases are handled (which the Trump crew has gone about destroying), there’s been much debate over how rape accusations should be handled by society. It would be nice to believe we’ve made progress. It would be great to think there aren’t still people who discount a woman’s word because she was wearing a skirt that was “too short” and high heels that somehow meant "she wanted it.” But contrary to those with alternate facts, we don’t live in a world of make believe. We exist in a place that can be all too real, indifferent, and cruel.
It’s in this backdrop the recent spate of high-profile accusations of sexual misconduct has made headlines. The reaction of the right has largely been subdued on the larger issue of violence against women, but vocal when the accused can be connected to Democrats. For progressives and liberals who identify as feminists, or are sympathetic to the injustices women face, the past week has been one of trying to balance uncomfortable distinctions for some.
Last Friday, Murray Miller, a writer and producer on shows like Girls, King Of The Hill, and American Dad, was accused of sexual assault by actress Aurora Perrineau, after she filed charges at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Perrineau, whose credits include Jem And The Holograms and Passengers, is the daughter of actor Harold Perrineau of Lost, and was only 17 years old when the alleged attack occurred. Since Miller worked on Girls, series creator Lena Dunham, along with Girls showrunner Jenni Konner, issued a statement defending Miller, in which she implied Perrineau was lying by declaring the charge against Miller would be “one of the 3 percent of assault cases that are misreported every year.” The statement was met with significant backlash, since Dunham has identified as a feminist, vocal in political stances, and in the past asserted “women don’t lie” when they make accusations about rape. This ultimately led to a huge backlash and Dunham retracting her statement of support for Miller. But not before damage was done, and some of Dunham’s own former employees called her a hypocrite and accused the actress/writer of “hipster racism” for making distinctions when taking the word of women of color.
The larger issue, of how far to go with the notion of “believe women,” is an interesting one given what happens when the allegations hit someone where people think the intersection of context and doubt should matter.
Dunham, as well as the HBO series Girls, have long been a lightning rod for critics on all sides of the political spectrum. From conservatives spreading rumors to others who feel both Dunham and her show exhibit the worst aspects of privilege. When this current controversy became a thing, it exacerbated many of those past critiques.
From William Hughes at the A.V. Club:
The backlash against Lena Dunham’s since-retracted message of support for a Girls writer accused of sexual assault deepened today, when a writer for Dunham’s Lenny Letter newsletter openly denounced her now-former boss. Novelist Zinzi Clemmons (author of What We Lose) posted a letter on Twitter early this morning, calling for “women of color—black women in particular—to divest from Lena Dunham.”
Clemmons’ letter notes how she initially met Dunham during their school days, describing her as a typical example of someone “who had a lot of power and seemed to get off on simultaneously wielding it and denying it.” (She also calls her out for behavior she dubbed “hipster racism.”) Clemmons goes so far as to say that one of her best friends was assaulted by someone in Dunham’s social circle, in circumstances similar to those alleged by actress Aurora Perrineau against Girls’ Murray Miller in 2012, and that Dunham’s response to that latter event was the final straw.
The common refrain of “believe women” when it comes to sexual assault allegations is in part a reaction to how both law enforcement and society at large have been shitty in dealing with the problem, leaving many crimes unreported because women fear coming forward. Therefore, the argument goes, we should as a default accept allegations as true in order to foster a climate where sexual assault survivors are comfortable telling their stories and their claims are taken seriously is more important to the way we treat this issue as a culture.
While idealistic in notion, it becomes somewhat problematic when contradiction, bias, and context come into play and leave a residue of doubt, as evidenced by the varied reactions to the charges against Sen. Al Franken (or anyone else people consider to be a “good guy” who might be getting screwed), and how it might be used by the right wing. Women who come forward deserve to be heard, listened to, and treated with seriousness and respect. But should that mean all skepticism and questions get thrown out the window?
In a comment here, someone posted this, which gets to the rub of these controversies, where celebrities and/or government officials offer some level of support to someone they know.
It’s a natural reaction particularly because so few women have been believed in the past and present. I’m in the middle, somewhat more on the former side; my default position is to believe the woman. Depending on new information to come and an overall assessment of the situation, I may change my position for a specific case … But yeah, it’s a very interesting scenario. Something I’ve thought about posting here, but hesitated based on expected responses, is this:
If your male relative (son, brother, father, grandfather, etc.) was accused of assaulting a woman, and you had no reason whatsoever to think the claim has any merit, would you believe the woman 100%? I gotta be honest, I definitely wouldn’t. Certainly not in a absolutist way, that’s for sure. If the evidence mounts, then I would have to come to terms with a horrifying reality. But before that evidence appears, fuck no I’m not believing it, I’m defending and protecting my family.
And, arguably, therein lies the problem from both perspectives. If and when things hit close to home, whether that be family, friends or political allies, people’s perspective can change. It’s a bias at best and tribal at worst. But, on the other hand, shouldn’t that give someone pause? If one wouldn’t treat their own family a certain way, why should it be good enough for everyone else?
Research about false reporting of sexual assault is about as politically contentious as research about climate change. However, studies consistent with FBI data estimate 2 to 8 percent of reported rapes are false. For the sake of argument, let’s peg it at 5 percent. If accurate, it would mean that in every 1,000 rape cases, there are potentially 50 innocent people labeled a rapist. Fifty people who will have to live with a mark of being a sex offender every time they apply for a job, try to get into a university, obtain credit, or anytime someone runs their name through Google. If we have a criminal justice system where even with a number of safeguards to protect the accused we still convict and sometimes execute people for crimes they didn't commit, should we then take pause before an internet "mob" with none of those safeguards brands someone a scumbag based on assumed guilt?
The flip side to this is an assertion that it's a reflection of society and a valuation of the worth of women when people worry and put the potential suffering of that 5 percent ahead of the misery of the 95 percent of the reported cases, as well as an unknown number of unreported cases. And a collective push from an internet cyber mob when dealing with accusations of rape is not always a bad thing, with many pointing to the role social media played in the Steubenville rape case in pushing the issue into the public consciousness.
Elements of the Democratic party have been arguing over this question in the last week, given not only the news about Sen. Franken, but also a push by people like Chris Hayes of MSNBC, Caitlin Flanigan in The Atlantic, Michelle Goldberg at The New York Times, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand to have a “reckoning” about the party’s treatment of the sexual allegations and conduct of President Clinton, which has been gladly joined by right-wing media and conservatives as a way to deflect attention away from the troubles of their senate candidate in Alabama and moreover the sitting Republican president.
Because the Democratic party is the party that usually identifies with feminist causes, is supported by feminist groups, and has many officials, including Hillary Clinton, who’re on record saying “we believe women” when they come forward, the question then becomes: Why don’t we believe the accusers who’ve made allegations against President Clinton? Or any other Democrat implicitly?
For some, including those listed above, the current atmosphere is a time to re-assessments and “reckonings,” where they assert anywhere between positions claiming the Democratic party was wrong to defend the Clintons against the accusations, to arguing President Clinton should have resigned solely because of his affair with Monica Lewinsky. And if Democrats want to practice what they preach, a full reckoning will entail casting out any elements of suspicion and acknowledging the party was wrong in the past.
But it’s not that simple.
I remember the 1990s and I remember that particular moment of American history. The reason the Democratic party stood with President Clinton was not because we thought cheating on your wife was great. It was because no one thought a president should lose their job and endure an almost decade long, $75 million investigation, which at the end of the day determined a guy lied about getting a consensual blowjob from an intern.
Was it inappropriate? Yes. But the current idea that it taints criticism of Trump, the image of the Democratic party, or might have cost Hillary the election, is in my mind ludicrous, since it presupposes a logical Trump voter who doesn’t find another reason to hate Hillary or whatever Democrat might be in that position. Remember, these are the same people ready to vote for an alleged pedophile over someone with a (D) next to their name. And if one is so troubled by abuse allegations, the answer to that is to support the party who has as their leader a man who’s stated on tape he grabs women’s genitals?
Beyond that stupidity, the more serious sexual accusations against President Clinton are definitely troubling, but there were legitimate reasons why people didn't believe them, or at the very least couldn’t believe them to the point the allegations stuck. The “reckoning” some on the left want about Bill Clinton kinda has to ignore the context of where those allegations were borne out of. We all just have to forget almost all of it was pushed along by political enemies who hated his guts and were just as insane in ways as the Obama birthers. Hell, there are many of the same people (e.g., when I was a teenager Paula Jones would appear on Jerry Falwell’s Old Time Gospel Hour on Sunday nights selling a tape claiming “proof” of Bill Clinton’s evil plans, which included alleged murders and dealing cocaine across Arkansas). And then on the other side of things, there are notable contradictions to the allegations (i.e., even though she’s changed her story, in the past Juanita Broaddrick signed an affidavit saying nothing happened when pushed about it by Paula Jones’s attorneys, and there are grudges and inconsistencies beyond just the affidavit).
There are claims that his cronies smuggled drugs through Mena; there are any number of women he is said to have had sexual relations with; there are murders, perhaps more than 50, that his political ''machine'' is said to have ordered or acquiesced in or covered up. Oh, and there is the claim that his mother was involved in two killings at the hospital where she worked as a nurse. And there is, most prominently, the death of White House Deputy Counsel Vincent W. Foster Jr., which no full-blooded Clinton crazy believes was a simple suicide.
An article over at Vox does a good job detailing the ins and outs of the Broaddrick accusation, which many find the most troubling, but it also exemplifies the problem with trying to find a firmament on which to say yea or nay about these things, or what the grudges and inconsistencies mean when it comes to allegations of this type. Because if one reads the piece, there’s really no way to clear the cloud, since anything that either contradicts or doesn’t make sense is usually followed by a “yeah, but ...” since sometimes victims don’t keep their story straight or behave in ways one would think they wouldn’t. It happens and is part of the reason advocates “believe" women in this sort of #metoo situation.
But … once the context of the political warfare comes into play, and the details and contradictions start adding up, things become murkier. And, in the end, it’s what makes this issue so hard to determine as to what constitutes fairness, justice and good policy.