One thing we all need to do more of is listen to the stories of people not like ourselves, whether that’s race, class, sexual orientation, etc., to understand each other, in order to solve big, complex problems in our society. One thing I know I don’t really understand, and that I’ll never fully grasp, is how typical abuse is for women (or people of color, or non-cis-gendered). But I ran across this essay of the (female) author’s long history of abuse she’s suffered, and I thought I’d pass it along to my fellow dudes who are also willing to learn. (And I’m very interested in hearing from anyone whether this tracks with your experience.)
Trump usually hires the worst people
Trump surrounds himself with people like himself—corrupt sociopaths, out for themselves more than anyone else; and often men who use and abuse their partners. We knew Trump was like this decades before the 2016 primaries. (And this is the future that the ”conservative” party chose? A deal with the devil; short-term gains at the expense of all moral credibility.)
"Due process" isn't relevant to a Supreme Court nomination →
Several people (including Wittes) have made the point that Supreme Court confirmation hearings aren't criminal trials; they are job interviews. That's a good point.
But I think there's something else that is equally important. If this were the sort of situation where BK were entitled to due process or where those alleging wrongdoing bear the burden of proof, then we'd have a number of other, very serious problems.
For one thing, it would be outrageous to limit the hearing to testimony from the accused and the accuser. Any trial judge who tried to do such a thing would be reversed -- probably summarily -- on appeal.
But the other major problem with the idea that ordinary legal rules apply has to do with the decisionmakers in confirmation hearings--the Senators.
So many of them have made clear that they are not neutral --they have already said that BK should or should not be confirmed
If this were a legal proceeding, many (if not all) of the members of the SJC would have to recuse themselves based on public statements that they've made either about this particular issue or the BK nomination more generally.
To be clear, I'm not trying to suggest that I know what procedures or burdens of proof the SJC should be using. That's not my area of expertise, and I'd defer to experts on that topic, like @AndyMcCanse
My point is simply to caution Erickson and others who are complaining that ordinary legal principles ought to apply.
You can't just cherry pick the principles that you like.
We need to understand how sexual assault affects people in order to have a just society
I’m not an expert on this. I read a few articles several years ago, and I’ve listened to some academic lectures on the topic. But what I’ve read makes it clear that we need to take people seriously when they accuse others of sexual assault—accusations should be carefully and neutrally investigated, for both parties’ sake. After nearly a year of #MeToo, and all of these famous guys in positions of power who’ve turned out to be serial sexual harassers and/or rapists, accusers still aren’t taken seriously; public debate still heavily doubts accusations, “because politics.” When pushed on why, people often justify their doubts because of accusers’ “inconsistent” behavior. But certain kinds of inconsistency are common with trauma resulting from sexual assault, so that shouldn’t be the standard for dismissing people’s claims.
Sexual assault is traumatic. The trauma from sexual assault messes with the brain. Sexual violence is psychologically damaging in a way that “just” getting physically beaten up typically isn’t: many people can’t stop questioning “why” it happened to them, or if they “caused” it in some way, or if they could have done anything different to stop it. To address one myth, a lot of people have no chance to fight back; they go catatonic when it’s happening to them, because it’s so unexpected and their brain tries to shield them from the experience. And it breaks the simple, everyday trust they have in other people or in society.
This level of psychological damage causes all kinds of “inconsistent” behavior: in some, acute memory loss, or shifting memory of events; in others, large and rapid mood swings, etc. And it’s impossible to predict what mix of weird behavior someone will exhibit. So it’s no wonder that people who’ve been assaulted are rarely believed by strangers (and often not even by close family and friends), and therefore why so few come forward, or why it takes them years (or decades). But if we educate ourselves, we can change that.
There’s a lot of great writing about sexual assault’s effects. Here’s one I recommend, which covers a little of the science, and talks about how police who aren’t trained to recognize signs of trauma often disbelieve victims and use standard interrogation techniques which result in further disbelief: Why Don’t Cops Believe Rape Victims? Brain science helps explain the problem—and solve it.
Here’s a related article, a bit more in depth: Training aims to improve how military sexual assaults are investigated
And, if you can stomach it, I highly recommend reading this story, “An Unbelievable Story of Rape”, and this followup article, “When Sexual Assault Victims are Charged with Lying". They convinced me that we need to treat all accusations seriously, no matter the circumstances. The only caveat to immediately and unequivocally taking the accuser at their word that I know of, might be if that person has a clear history of outlandish fabrications, as per this summary of studies into the "types" of people who make the vast majority of false sexual assault accusations: What kind of person makes false rape accusations? But even then, we need to keep in mind that most sexual assaults are committed by serial assaulters, and they often target those they think are less likely to be believed. So, again, investigation should be the norm, and it should be done thoroughly and neutrally, by trained experts.
This would also go a long way toward undoing the paranoia around false rape accusations, and dealing (punitively or not) with fake accusations when they occur. The sooner we professionalize sexual assault investigation, the sooner people who’ve been assaulted will feel comfortable coming forward, justice will catch up to abusers, AND we’ll have the understanding and resources to deal with fake accusations.
The Manafort Guilty Plea, the Mueller Investigation, and the President →
On Friday, Manafort, who was chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign from June to August 2016, pleaded guilty in federal district court in Washington to two charges of conspiracy against the United States—one involving a lobbying scheme that involved financial crimes and foreign-agent registration violations, and the other involving witness tampering. In the course of his plea, Manafort also admitted guilt on bank-fraud charges on which a federal jury in Virginia hung last month…
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The grain of truth in Sanders’s claim is that most, though not all, of the criminal conduct to which Manafort admitted preceded his work for the Trump campaign, and none directly implicates the campaign itself or Trump. But it is only a grain. For one thing, Trump constantly boasted of hiring the “best people”—and even in March 2016, when Manafort first joined the campaign, it was clear that he was superlative chiefly in influence peddling on behalf of unsavory characters close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. His questionable reputation and murky relationships with former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska were matters of public knowledge long before the campaign began.
Indeed, though the specific crimes to which Manafort has now pleaded were not yet public, the most rudimentary vetting would have flagged him as a person of particularly high risk. As Franklin Foer noted in the Atlantic last month, Sen. John McCain rejected Manafort’s involvement in the 2008 Republican National Convention because of his disreputable ties even back then, before his involvement with Yanukovych. Trump hired him anyway.
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In this conduct, Manafort was not alone. He is the third Trump campaign official to plead guilty to having undisclosed relationships with foreign actors that he was obliged by law to make public. According to documents filed by the special counsel, Michael Flynn, Rick Gates and Paul Manafort, each of whom served in an official capacity on the campaign, failed to disclose ties to a foreign power in violation of FARA. Three points, as they say, make a pattern—and this pattern is seriously troubling. Surrounding the man who became president were multiple individuals—including his campaign chairman, his deputy campaign chairman and his campaign adviser—who surreptitiously represented foreign interests within the United States. They are also individuals whose potential criminal exposure, in the form of their failure to register under FARA, was known to foreign interests in a position to use it as leverage. One of them—Flynn—went on to join the White House as national security adviser.
All of which is to say that the White House doth protest too much. While Manafort’s plea, in contrast to Michael Cohen’s last month, does not implicate the president or the campaign in any felonies, it is not entirely separate from them either.
How to Get the Kavanaugh Hearings Right →
Here are some basic ground rules the committee should follow:
Refrain from pitting the public interest in confronting sexual harassment against the need for a fair confirmation hearing. Our interest in the integrity of the Supreme Court and in eliminating sexual misconduct, especially in our public institutions, are entirely compatible. Both are aimed at making sure that our judicial system operates with legitimacy.
Select a neutral investigative body with experience in sexual misconduct cases that will investigate the incident in question and present its findings to the committee. Outcomes in such investigations are more reliable and less likely to be perceived as tainted by partisanship. Senators must then rely on the investigators’ conclusions, along with advice from experts, to frame the questions they ask Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Blasey. Again, the senators’ fact-finding roles must guide their behavior. The investigators’ report should frame the hearing, not politics or myths about sexual assault.
Do not rush these hearings. Doing so would not only signal that sexual assault accusations are not important — hastily appraising this situation would very likely lead to facts being overlooked that are necessary for the Senate and the public to evaluate. That the committee plans to hold a hearing this coming Monday is discouraging. Simply put, a week’s preparation is not enough time for meaningful inquiry into very serious charges.
Finally, refer to Christine Blasey Ford by her name. She was once anonymous, but no longer is. Dr. Blasey is not simply “Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser.” Dr. Blasey is a human being with a life of her own. She deserves the respect of being addressed and treated as a whole person.
"But why would someone wait so long to report their rape?" →
And that showed me what they REALLY thought about abuse and what they REALLY thought about victims, when sexual abuse wasn't an easy thing to condemn. I knew it meant if faced with a choice between a survivor and their favorite "whatever", they'd attack the survivor.
I watched them denigrate the victim's character, motives, truthfulness, and value some political, sport or ministry goal more than the truth. Completely blinded to even the possibility it could be true. It felt like a knife wound every time I saw it.
And I'm watching it again. Conservatives, you are yelling from the rooftops that you don't care what the truth is, and you aren't safe, and you'll attack a victim any time it would cost you to care. And that's shameful. You can, and should, do better.
Conservatives, you want to be the party of family values? You want to be pro-woman and pro-child? Then start by taking claims of sexual assault seriously instead of using poor logic, straw men and ad hominems to avoid the issue. Otherwise, you are part of the cultural problem.
And yes, I'm saying that as a conservative evangelical (in case anyone has missed that). Why? Because those closest to the abuse and enabling are the only ones able to change things. What you do when it's in your own community is what makes the difference.
What kind of person makes false rape accusations? →
Given the recent reporting on Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh’s alleged attempted rape, here’s some good information to keep in mind. Fake rape accusations are pretty rare, and rarer the higher the profile of the person being accused (as the person doing the accusing will have to endure an enormous backlash). Unless Ford is mentally ill, she’s likely telling the truth, and Kavanaugh’s history needs to be scrutinized.
Furthermore, in the most detailed study ever conducted of sexual assault reports to police, undertaken for the British Home Office in the early 2000s, out of 216 complaints that were classified as false, only 126 had even gotten to the stage where the accuser lodged a formal complaint. Only 39 complainants named a suspect. Only six cases led to an arrest, and only two led to charges being brought before they were ultimately deemed false. (Here, as elsewhere, it has to be assumed that some unknown percentage of the cases classified as false actually involved real rapes; what they don’t involve is countless innocent men’s lives being ruined.)
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In every academic study, one of the most common kinds of false accuser is a teenage girl who tells her parents she was raped to avoid getting in trouble. Unwanted pregnancy is sometimes cited by such girls, but the reason can also be trivial; the phrase “missed curfew” shows up with disturbing frequency in these cases. As a rule, it’s the parents who insist on getting police involved…
Another kind of case which evaporates rapidly is that of a person who falsely reports a rape in the hope of getting needed medical care or psychiatric medication; in one study, six of the 55 reports classified as false by a police department in one year fit this description. Like the teens who missed their curfew, these false accusers have no interest in pursuing charges after the lie has served its purpose.
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When one looks at a series of fabricated sexual assaults, on the other hand, patterns immediately begin to emerge. The most striking of these is that, almost invariably, adult false accusers who persist in pursuing charges have a previous history of bizarre fabrications or criminal fraud. Indeed, they’re often criminals whose family and friends are also criminals; broken people trapped in chaotic lives.
But while false accusers often have similar histories, they have various motives. These can be divided into roughly four categories: personal gain, mental illness, revenge, and the need for an alibi.
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A final note about who makes false accusations: While popular conceptions of this issue center on female mendacity, clearly many of these stories involve male accusers. Given the fact that men, too, can crave revenge and have personality disorders, this should be obvious. If it’s counter-intuitive, it’s because the issue has consistently been framed as one of gender warfare. But the truth is that false rape accusations aren’t salvos in any political struggle. They’re crimes, mostly perpetrated by the same men and women who commit other categories of crime, and for similar reasons.
Neither are false accusations the result of miscommunications taking place in a murky world of casual hook-ups and heavy drinking. False accusers almost never tell stories that could, by any stretch of the imagination, be seen as an innocent misunderstanding. In a study of false rape claims made to the Los Angeles Police Department, 78% involved claims of aggravated rape—assaults involving a gun or knife, gang rapes, and/or attacks resulting in injuries.
Most of all, it should be remembered that a false accuser is a person making up a story to serve some goal. Whether the impetus is personal gain, factitious disorder, the need for an alibi, or revenge, it’s crucial to the accuser that their story be taken seriously. For this reason, it’s radically unlikely—and in practice does not happen—that a false accuser would invent a story where the issue of consent could seem ambiguous.
It’s necessary to add an important caveat: The same kinds of people who are most likely to become false accusers are also frequently targeted by predators. Teenagers, people with severe mental illness, people with criminal records—all are vulnerable to rapists, who often have a very keen sense of which victims are most likely to be mistrusted by authorities. Although the accounts of these complainants need careful scrutiny, police should take them more seriously, not less seriously, than they currently do. The lesson to be drawn here is not that any individual’s story of sexual assault should be discounted; it’s that the vast majority of rape reports can be believed.
When a woman says she’s been brutally raped by seven men at a public party on a bed of broken glass, as the UVA accuser did, and when that woman has a history of strange lies, as the UVA accuser also did, there’s nothing wrong with being skeptical. But if a woman without any history of dramatic falsehoods says she went home with a man and, after they’d kissed a while consensually, he held her down and forced her into sex—in the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary, you can just assume it’s true. This is not because of any political dictum like “Believe women.” It’s because this story looks exactly like tens of thousands of date rapes that happen every year, and nothing at all like a false rape accusation.