It’s the sharp whistle as you walk by, the unwelcome attention from the man standing too close, the hand placed where it shouldn’t be. It’s the little things that happen every day that make women feel small and the big, traumatic events that reduce us to nothing at all.
Two years after the start of the #MeToo movement, our society continues to wrestle with sexual assault and its consequences. The latest accuser to come forward is E. Jean Carroll, a popular advice columnist for Elle magazine. She has accused President Trump, along with at least five other men at different points of her life, of sexually assaulting her in the late 1990s.
Carroll’s story was confirmed off the record for New York magazine by at least two people she told about the Trump incident contemporaneously. If we keep digging, Carroll says the security cameras at Bergdorf’s 58th Street entrance would confirm her account as well. The White House denies this and says her story is false.
But let’s assume (arguendo) that it’s true. If Carroll’s story is what she says it is, it confirms what 15 other women have said of Donald Trump: that he doesn’t value or respect women but sees them as objects and tools of his fancy. From what we already know of Trump’s past and the claims out of his own mouth, Carroll’s story isn’t at all surprising.
Yet, I couldn’t help reading it with a bit of skepticism. “Why now?” I asked. Is it because Trump just launched his reelection campaign? Why didn’t she speak up earlier? Yes, she said she didn’t want to face the “death threats, being driven from my home, being dismissed, being dragged through the mud,” but in that case, why now?
I realized I was asking the same questions I had asked during Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Similar accusations were thrown at him, and a nation watched one woman bring her story before the Senate. I wrote at the time that Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony was important, and I believe that to this day. Accusers shouldn’t be reflexively believed, but they should be taken seriously, as Philip Klein wrote.
Ford’s story, however, was used by Democrats to assassinate the character of a man against whom they had no corroborative evidence. She became the Democrats’ tool for derailing another Supreme Court nomination. For those who disagree, take a look at the other women who came forward after Ford. Each one of their stories was proven false. They lied to promote a narrative, and the whole nation suffered as a result.
Ford’s assault — which I do believe happened, but probably not at Kavanaugh’s hands — became the weapon. Her pain, so evident throughout her testimony, became a partisan test. Those who voted for Kavanaugh failed it, and those who voted against him were labeled champions of women’s rights. Ford is not to blame; the Democrats are, the ones who made her story public against her will and then used her, only to toss her aside afterward. As a result of their actions, even a more apparently credible accusation like Carroll’s is harder to believe.
Democrats aren’t the only ones to blame: A crowd of Trump supporters in Mississippi cheered as the president mocked Christine Blasey Ford, chanting, “Lock her up!” The political cheapening of sexual assault is a disservice to survivors. Something that should serve as a unifying cry of condemnation has been turned into the cause of division; the pain of hundreds of thousands of women is now just a weapon.
What began as a decent attempt to right the wrongs done to women has turned into a movement that cheapens survivors’ stories and promotes bad-faith assumptions. Somewhere along the way, between Harvey Weinstein’s downfall and Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony, sexual assault became just another political commodity.
Carroll knows this. Perhaps that’s why she hasn’t come forward until now.
