Deborah Tuerkheimer: Why Don’t We Believe Women?
“Outside the legal context, I'm urging readers and listeners in this case to think very deliberately about whether that high standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is really necessary before a person will believe so to speak, will feel confident enough to offer, let's say, support to a roommate or to a coworker. And I want to suggest that we should actually require much less by way of certainty and confidence in order to offer that kind of support to someone who is in an informal setting coming to us as a kind of first responder, because this is how most allegations surface. People rarely go to the police. First more often, they turn to a trusted confidant, someone within their inner circle. And it's the response of that individual that's likely to affect the trajectory to come” so says Deborah Tuerkheimer, a Harvard and Yale-educated lawyer, former New York District Attorney specializng in domestic violence and child abuse protection and current professor at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law where she teaches and writes about criminal law, evidence, and feminist legal theory. To say she is impressive is a massive understatement.
Today she joins me to discuss her book, CREDIBLE: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers. We dive into a conversation about credibility and sexual assault: What makes a credible victim? How do culture, law, and psychology shape our judgement? And how can our systems be more responsive to the needs of survivors? In the court of cultural opinion, Deb says, we disservice so many victims by dismissing and discounting their pain that sometimes, the aftermath is almost worse than the event itself. We talk about the myth of the false accuser, underreporting as a reflection of our cultural credibility context, and the dangerous archetypes of the perfect victim and the monster abuser.
Finally, we discuss the push for restorative justice processes, which must begin with an acknowledgement of responsibility from the offender, and then go on to ask: “What will it take to repair the harm?”, ultimately turning to the victim and their community to answer that question.
Please note that today’s episode contains information about sexual assault and/or violence which may be triggering to survivors - I encourage you to care for your safety and well-being.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
It happened, it was wrong, it matters…(
He said, she said…(
The myth of the false accuser…(
What does it take to repair the harm...(
MORE FROM DEB TUERKHEIMER:
CREDIBLE: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers
More Books, Articles and Op-Eds by Deb Tuerkheimer
DIG DEEPER:
RAINN: the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization
National Sexual Assault Hotline: 800.656.HOPE
TRANSCRIPT:
(Edited slightly for clarity.)
ELISE:
Well, congrats on your book. And the framing of it was so interesting, I think because it's the first time that I'd really personally pondered, like what makes certain people credible? And obviously as a woman, I, we all know too well, how, particularly in the context of sex crimes, like we are not credible or people might believe us, but not be inclined to take action. So can you sort of position us based on your long career contemplating this type of thing?
DEBORAH TUERKHEIMER:
There are two kind of main interventions that I'm trying to achieve with the book. One is to situate credibility as a form of power and to get people thinking about credibility in structural terms, meaning that the kinds of social inequalities and hierarchies that we see around us are very likely to find an outlet in the ways that we meet out credibility, the way that we judge credibility. And so I think that's sort of a shift in the way that we think about this. There's nothing about credibility, that's kind of idiosyncratic or arbitrary, but rather we can start to see these patterns if we look for them. And again, those patterns are going to track on lines of power. And so that's, that's one piece. And then the other is, is more in the context of sexual abuse allegations, which is where my book focuses. Everything that I've said so far about credibility, I think has general application.
And I think we see what I call “credibility discounting” in lots and lots of places. But what I'm about to say now is really about allegations that come up in the sexual assault or sexual harassment context. And what I want to suggest there is that when someone comes forward and makes an accusation of abuse, we tend to focus really on the, what happened part of the claim. But there's more to it than that. The allegation really involves three claims: It happened, it was wrong, and it matters. And that's where I want to, I think expand our understanding of what it means to believe an allegation of abuse, because if we don't believe all three claims, we're going to dismiss it and the outcome is much the same.
ELISE:
And the, “we” is really interesting too, because throughout the book, you sort of tease out there's the legal structure under which very few of these cases ever even really make it to court because the barriers are just too high. And there's so much credibility discounting that it's almost nearly impossible to find a victim who's been victimized enough to capture a jury or judge’s attention, which is sick and true. And then there's sort of the, the, the court of cultural opinion, right? Which is where we, you know, disservice so many women or other survivors or victims of crimes by either not really believing them or discounting their pain. So, you know, throughout the book, you're also talking about how for so many of the people you profile, the aftermath is almost worse than the actual event because of the gaslighting, the dismissing, the character assassination, and th not only the, and, and often the credibility assassination comes from going through women's personal histories to paint them as sluts and whores who deserve it. Not to be crass, but that's often what happens, right? It's it, it, it's kind of prehistoric.
DEBORAH:
Yeah. I mean, we think of, I think many of us think of this kind of victim blaming particularly focused on female sexuality as being a relic of the past and sadly and maddeningly, I show in the book that this continues to this day. I spoke to many survivors in the course of researching the book. And, you know, going back over the course of my career I have had many, many conversations with victims of sexual abuse. And this is a recurring theme is that they were scrutinized when they came forward. They were made to feel as if they were wrong. They were in the wrong, they were to blame. And that this notion of the aftermath being as bad or even worse than the assault or the harassment itself, is something that I, it just struck me over and over again and has struck researchers in the field. This is something that I think most people who haven't gone through it may not realize that. You know, the response, whether it be the response by a police officer or a title nine officer, or your roommate, or your mom, is likely going to be either an important step on the journey toward healing, or hugely devastating ,and a setback that, that makes healing, you know, even a more distant reality.
ELISE:
Because so often, you know, there's this cultural contract where girls are responsible, but alternately like we're powerless. And we have all the power right. To compel men to abuse us. It's a really strange, double-bind that is that we don't really think about or tease out and then…so the standards for us alternately are higher, in terms of our moral character. And, and then at the same time, we're, there's a sympathy, a himpathy right? To quote Kate Manne, that's towards men of like, they can't really control themselves, and they're victimized by their own primal urges. And you were drunk, you know, all of these things, it's this it's you, you mentioned Chessy Prout. And this quote I thought is so staggering. She, she says “I was too trusting, too naive. I felt like it was all my fault. It would take me years to accept what now seems obvious. Rape is not a punishment for poor judgment.” And yet that seems to be sort of the barrier. That seems to be often, we're talking about like, it's the woman has had somehow poor judgment: drank, wore revealing clothing. And that, that justifies what happens to her.
DEBORAH:
Yeah. We placed an obligation on women and girls, frankly, to forestall any kind of male sexual predation. We take as a given that men are going to assault, are going to harass. And then it becomes the obligation of that would-be victim to keep that at bay. And when I'm going to use gendered pronouns, because this is a highly gendered phenomenon, it's not to deny that men and boys can't be victims of assault or harassment, but for the most part, it's girls and women who are victims of assault and harassment. And when she fails to do what's necessary, this is an air quotes, to prevent her victimization, then we point the finger at her and we hold her responsible. Rather than, as you say, imposing consequences. This is true as a matter of course. And then there are certain kinds of women and certain kinds of behaviors that are especially likely to trigger our judgments, including, as you mentioned, drinking alcohol, including certain kinds of sexual histories, including certain kinds of sexy dress, so to speak. And I should add that a lot of this gets baked into the law. And so the book kind of toggles back and forth between culture, law, and then individual psychology, and shows how, you know, all of these forces together shape our credibility judgments in ways we may not even realize,
ELISE:
Can you give sort of an example of that, the way that we would boost the credibility of a man in power and then sort of denim and without even obviously without conscious awareness, but how this sort of particularly plays out with the, like a, he said, she said context.
DEBORAH:
When someone talks about a, “he said, she said,” contest almost invariably, he wins. The status quo is preserved the idea. And you can sort of hear this in the very framing of a word on word, as he said, she said. Is that there's not enough evidence. There's not enough reason to believe that this happened in order for a person to act. And I want to be really careful here and, and really precise because what it takes for someone to act really ought to depend on the context. So a few examples in the legal setting, let's say the criminal court setting, we have a very high standard of proof, proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And that's for good reason. Liberty is on the line. The stakes are really, really high. And so we need a lot of certainty before a trier of fact, a jury let's say returns, a guilty verdict. In other legal settings, we have lower lower standards of proof because the stakes are not quite as high.
And then outside the legal context, I am urging readers and listeners in this case to, to think very deliberately about whether that high standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is really necessary before a person will believe, so to speak, will feel confident enough to offer, let's say, support to a roommate or to a coworker. And I want to suggest that we should actually require much less by way of certainty and confidence in order to offer that kind of support to someone who is in an informal setting, coming to us as a kind of first responder, because this is how most allegations surface. People rarely go to the police. First more often, they turn to a trusted confidant, someone within their inner circle. And it's the response of that individual that's likely to affect the trajectory to come.
ELISE:
Which is, is this person's life essentially going to be sort of stalled out, is the trauma going to be compounded? Will there be an inability to sort of move on? And then you get into these, like you mentioned, Chanel Miller at length, and the whole Stanford/Brock Turner trial. And essentially it was like, oh, so my pain is worthless, and my inability to move forward with my life in the context of his quote unquote potential, which is typically what we see. Like, oh, well, is this worth it to ruin this guy's life? And then on the flip side, you have someone like Chanel who now has been to some extent validated, vindicated, doesn't make it okay. But she's a rare, she's an anomaly in the system. But essentially what you're saying is it doesn't matter if your life is completely sidelined. And I mean, so many women are, are survivors. It's wild, right?
DEBORAH:
And, and it's, you know, it's really important to notice the disparity between the care and the concern we show for those survivors, and the care and concern we show for those who hurt them, who abused them. Chanel Miller's case, I think is a, is a really good example of this, a horrible example of this. But the idea here is that imposing consequences on someone who we already revere perhaps. He's a powerful man. He's an influential man, or in the case of Brock Turner, someone who has this limitless potential, this, you know, the seemingly golden path ahead. And so the victim's pain, the survivor's pain, really almost disappears. It's almost erased. I call this the care gap. The idea that there really is this differential between the ways that we mete out concern and care. And it often leaves survivors feeling as if their pain doesn't matter. And therefore, they don't matter. That relative to their abuser, they are less important. They are less valued as members of the community, be it the workplace, the college campus setting, or if we're talking about a state prosecution, a citizen, a member of our, of our shared collective existence in, in this, in this country. And that again is deeply wounding.
ELISE:
And this is where I feel like there's so much, I'll be kind and call it misunderstanding. It's gross misunderstanding. But this idea, too, that, that women, I think, you know, Jezebels, etcetera, that we'd be inclined to make something up in order to ruin someone's life, or draw attention to ourselves for something that's profoundly disempowering, humiliating, and traumatic is such a nasty legacy. And one that I feel like it's still this burden of proof, or there's still this idea of like that someone would, would want to report, would be dying to take themselves broken to the police department, to have them, their body, their body cavity’s swabs. You know, it's so maddening that somehow even that impulse is disregarded. I mean, the statistics from police departments, I mean just how little rape is reported, particularly for women of color is staggering. And then, you know, the police officers who are like, oh yeah, we think maybe 30% of them are credible. I mean, that is wild.
DEBORAH:
Right? I mean, the, the under reporting problem, as you say is enormous. And then you have case attrition at every stage along the way when we're talking about the criminal process. And so an estimated out of an estimated 1,000 sexual assaults, 975 perpetrators will walk entirely free. And so that gives you a sense of the, the magnitude of, of this problem. And at the same time, we have this, this vision, this myth of the false accuser, and it maintains such a hold on the cultural imagination, and frankly, in law as well. And we have these various archetypes, the gold digger, the woman who regrets consensual sex and then lies about it, the attention seeker. I mean, I go through in the book and I sort of talk about each of these, the, these caricatures of women and absolutely race matters in this analysis as does class, again because credibility is a form of power. We to be talking about gender and every other way in which, as we look across society, we see hierarchies and we see oppressions. Because they all matter. This is a, uh, it has to be an intersectional analysis.
ELISE:
Yeah. And do you have a sense? I don't know. I mean, obviously I'm sure these types of statistics don't really exist, but I want to talk about sort of NDAs and here in California, the way that they're trying to get rid of them, because so, so much abuse is repetitive, right? I mean, I don't know what the differences between sort of the person who, the, the perpetrator, who does something terrible and then never does it again, versus, you know, I still have regret. And you talk about this to some extent in the book and the context of some women being, feeling like they are called to do something because to stop the abuse. I mean, when I was in college, I worked in the psychology department and for these two wonderful women, and there was a professor who was known as like a groper, essentially.
And he came up behind me. I was sitting, filing, doing like expense paperwork for professors. He came up behind me, put his hands on my shoulder and rubbed his erection into the back of my head in front of my boss. And so I know it was disgusting, but then I was, I was summoned in to the head of the department. And essentially this guy was being sort of moved to another school anyway. And they were like, what do you want to do? And effectively, I was like, I don't want to do anything, you know, but still, I still, I still, I have some anger, not because it was so traumatic for me, it wasn't, but that they knew, and yet they just let him…
DEBORAH:
And put you in a horrible position as someone who had a lot less power in this situation. You would be taking on a lot as, you know, one of the women I spoke to over the book, put it, and I think put it so well, accusers get dragged. They just get dragged. And it's a lot to ask someone to take on. And at the same time, you're right. That many women do, in large part, because they feel the, the need to protect other, would-be victims. And that is a huge motivating force. And it's, you know, it's interesting to me because without that, it's sometimes doesn't feel it doesn't feel important enough even to a survivor, to go forward. And one reason can be, because again, this care gap is internalized. A lot of the forces that I talk about in the book, I, you know, survivors experience it as well. And so, you know, we can go through each one of the dimensions, if we're talking about what happened, you know, I often hear from people, I second guessed myself.
I just couldn't. I just couldn't believe I could. I couldn't believe myself. I couldn't trust my own experience because again, we live in a society where women are constantly doubted and there is a norm of self doubt that then gets perpetuated blame. I mean, we've talked a little bit about this, but how many women ask themselves, what could I have done differently? What did I do to bring this upon myself? What if I hadn't had as much to drink, or I shouldn't have gone home with, I mean, these are the kinds of questions that survivors are often confronting themselves with, and they can be so hard on themselves because again, they're getting that from the culture at large. And then to this point about care and concern, it is so commonplace for people who are victimized to think about the perpetrator first and to put his needs and interests first, and to say, I don't want his life to be affected by this. And so I'm just going to keep quiet. And so there are ways in which all of this gets internalized, and often to the point where it causes the kind of silence that we see as a general rule that the under-reporting problem I think can be understood as a reflection of this credibility complex in all of its dimensions.
ELISE:
Yeah, no, and I think that this is also why we see sort of this, this Cosby or Weinstein, like you see a huge amount of women coming forward, who hadn't said anything, because there’s sort of this burden of, you know, in my situation, I was completely validated, you know, both of these women saw it and immediately were like, you know, holy shit. And, but then it should have been taken from me, and there should be cultural repercussions outside of the legal system in situations like that, which never, never happened. And I feel bad because it wasn't traumatic for me in part, because I was witnessed, but I don't know what he's done to other women. And these people are sort of preserved, you know.
DEBORAH:
That's right. They're protected. And the burden is placed on someone to, you know, shoulder all of the hardship of coming forward. We don't have good systems in place that, that make reporting a particularly attractive option. And because there are these power imbalances, it's going to take a lot to kind of correct for that. And we can all do better in our individual lives, and in our sort of daily interactions. And at the same time, the systems that we have in place to formally respond to abuse allegations need to get a whole lot better.
ELISE:
So I want to switch to sort of the ways that we can be more supportive culturally, but first, you know, I don't know what's happening in the rest of the country, but I do know, and in California, that NDAs, which employees are often, you know, compelled to sign as part of severance agreements or in the context of a settlement, which essentially, I mean, you talk about Chu, who is one of the Harvey Weinstein accusers. And she just talks about this, her nondisclosure agreement, essentially like the constant fear that she would slip up on her promise to never speak of this, that it was haunted. It was like its own form of trauma. Because I do think talking is healing, right. And to get it, I get these stories out. And, and that validation that you mentioned is so important. So I know California particularly, and I don't, I'm curious if this is happening across the country, but they are really coming down hard on NDAs in any form because they see them as protecting abusive and toxic cultures and protecting abusers. Is that something that you think will become more common nationwide, where you cannot make someone sign an NDA?
DEBORAH:
I think it's perhaps the beginning of a trend. There are a handful of states that in the sort of MeToo era have made this a priority. California is one, New York is another. And I think it's, it's, it's complicated because for so many survivors, as you say, that silencing effect was really harmful. And at the same time, there are survivors who want to be able to settle their cases. And the only way they're going to get that is with this kind of secrecy provision built-in, which of course can be detrimental to future victims and to the public's interest in knowing who these abusers are. And so there, there there's a tension here. And I think some of this, if we pull back, we would say, wouldn't it be, wouldn't it be a better world if someone who was victimized by someone felt like the culture was receptive to those claims, and felt like there was no cost to coming forward publicly, and felt like the society writ large would side with the victim and not the abuser.
So this is some of the cultural transformation that I think ultimately we ought to seek. And in the interim, we've got this problem of transition, which is what do we do with these confidentiality agreements that come up in the context of settlements? I think it's an easy case to say, look as a condition of employment, this is just unacceptable, you know, full stop. And I think where it gets a little bit trickier is when it comes to these, these settlements, which again, you're going to have some victims who say, this is what I needed to get the closure that I wanted. And he wouldn't settle it. If he didn't have this confidentiality provision. I didn't want to go to trial because again, going to trial is horrible. It can be horrible for survivors.
ELISE:
Yeah, no, it's just the silencing that's already so built into the system that it perpetuates. But I think it's something, at least I'm, I'm happy to see that people are recognizing how harmful that is, and oppressive in its own way.
DEBORAH:
Absolutely. And I think, you know, for the lawyers who represent these victims, I think it's, the conversation should become more sophisticated, more evolved, and more focused on exactly what you just said that they're there, that when you're thinking about healing and you're thinking about moving forward, it's a journey, but that silencing piece can be really harmful.
ELISE:
Yeah. And so, and then in the context of the cultural understanding of rape, I mean, you sort of, if you don't mind, if I, that "one of the prevailing problems is this idea of stranger rape, which I'm going to read to you from your book, and that you sort of cite this as the comparitor. This is our cultural understanding, sort of the SVU-style rape by which we measure all other sex crimes, but it's obviously predominantly people who are known to the survivor, but that the stranger rape is known as real rape or righteous rape. “This is rape perpetrated, not by someone known to the victim, but by a stranger. It's committed by someone of low socioeconomic status. It entails a great deal of physical violence that leads obvious signs of physical injury. It involves a weapon, it takes place at night in a dark alley or a rough neighborhood.”
And this defies reality, as you say, like this just doesn't really happen very frequently, right. And when it does it's front page news, but this is, this is the standard. If we're not, if a woman is not physically destroyed, visibly abused. I mean, some of the cases that you mentioned are wild in the sense of a woman will be pinned down. There might be a, there might be some sort of weapon and yet a court will be like she could have tried harder. And then also the react. Can you also talk a little bit about the reaction and the way that rape victims of rape are supposed to be to present, versus the reality? Like there were various people talking about how they couldn't stop laughing for example.
DEBORAH:
And yes, Agent Kelly. Yes. And so what's so pernicious about this stranger rape paradigm, which like continues to preoccupy us, even if we think we know better, even if we think we know the statistics. It gives the stranger rape paradigm gives rise to these archetypes: The perfect victim and the monster abuser. And so I'll talk about the perfect victim first. She fights back because why wouldn't someone fight back if a stranger jumps out of an alley. And so she physically resists she of course, wasn't drinking beforehand or having any contact with the attacker beforehand, and she wouldn't have any contact with him afterwards. There would be no reason for the, two to maintain any kind of relationship, which of course creates problems in cases that let's say like Weinstein, where there's a reason for the victim to maintain some contact with her abuser. Cosby, we see it all over the place.
And yet again, that perfect victim she's, she's done. As soon as the assault is done, she reports immediately. She has no further contact with her abuser. And she's able to describe what happened in a linear fashion with every detail included, which of course defies everything we know about trauma and the realities of trauma. But yet again, the perfect victim behaves in a certain way. When women come forward and they deviate from that archetype, they are less credible. They're seen as less credible. And then I mentioned the monster abuser. I mean, the idea here is that if this really is a, a monster to sort of a violent predator who doesn't resemble anyone in our midst, doesn't resemble our coworkers, or our friends, then we're less likely to see these men as being capable of perpetrating assault and harassment, which again, statistically, we know they do. But I think there's a disconnect between our sense of what an abuser looks like and how he behaves. And then the realities that this is so prevalent.
ELISE:
Let's talk a little bit about restorative justice, which I know for some can be really healing for others feels flawed. But like, do you see a pathway where these sorts of, depending on the severity, where these sorts of crimes are mediated in a way where everyone feels like they've evolved, that the trauma is addressed, that they're vindicated and validated on the part of the survivor, and that the perpetrator that is, is appropriately redress. Like, you know, because as we all know, prison isn't necessarily the most healing place on the planet. So what would you like to see?
DEBORAH:
In the book I tell a story of where I think restorative justice work really well, and this involved two high school students, Sophia is the girl's name. And she was able to, I think, to come out of this process with her offender, as it's called in the restorative justice context, Sophia felt empowered. She felt as if her family members and his sided with her, which was hugely validating and vindicating. She felt as if he, Michael, is the individual's name, that he grew and came to terms with what he did in the course of this process. And for those who don't know, briefly restorative justice processes begin an acknowledgement from the offender. It starts from the proposition that there's no denying what happened. There's no question about, you know, sort of factual dispute. It starts from the proposition that there's an acceptance of responsibility.
And from there, the process works through: What does it take to repair the harm? And it involves the community in that question. And so I like telling the story, retelling the story of Sophia and Michael and the book, because it is an example of, I think, how it can work when it works well. And on college campuses, this is what many survivors want. This is something that feels more suitable than a more adversarial hearing process that results in more traditional sanctions and discipline. And at the same time, I want to give voice to those who, who don't feel as if restorative justice is, is for them or that it will reflect the seriousness of the harm that was done to them. And I think just pulling back a little bit in the chapter on accountability in the book, I try as I do throughout the book to center the voices of survivors and to take very seriously the idea that there is often not a one size fits all approach here. I think the meaning of accountability varies so dramatically that systems ought to be responsive to the needs of survivors, whatever those needs are,
ELISE:
But there does seem to be regardless of whether there's prison time, et cetera. And I, and I think similarly, and again, I can't speak for anyone outside of myself, but particularly for people in college, high school, et cetera, this idea of, um, and I don't want to slip into Himpathy to, to quote Kate Manne, but I don't want the burden of, I want what happened to be acknowledged and redressed without the burden of feeling like some 16-year-old is in juvie. I don't, you know, but again, it's, it's like we lack all spectrum. There's no nuance, right? It's like, you're either in juvie or you're innocent, and there's no, there's, there's so little middle ground that we have access to culturally. And I think it's, it's within that, telling of that story around Michael, who essentially didn't understand consent. And then his mother is in the room as well with his sister. And she is just like, like, how could you do this? And then he, as part of it publicly acknowledged that she was not a liar, and that he had done what she said, because there was a storm of gossip, right? Like so many of these, you mentioned these girls get dragged, but they get abused publicly for these sorts of allegations. And then as part of it, he had to stay away from school, right. To give her time.
DEBORAH:
Yeah, that's right. I mean, you know, the sense on the, of those around her was that this process helps Sophia reclaim her power. And in the end that, you know, that is really at the heart of what I think this healing is, and what justice looks like. So for some of the women I spoke to a restorative justice process would have been exactly what they wanted, and for the reasons that you're suggesting. It would have felt commensurate with the harm that was done to them. And there were others who felt very strongly that a criminal sanction of some sort was really important. Some felt that the amount of incarceration didn't much matter at all, but that some kind of a criminal conviction that would bear the imprimatur of the state and the condemnation of the state was very important. Some felt that their attacker was dangerous and in order to protect future victims, that individual needed to be incarcerated. And so there really is sort of the full range of understandings, of the meaning of accountability. And I, you know, I guess my vantage on it all was to say, what will really help the survivor and what will really count as justice, a meaningful disruption of the status quo in order to, to figure out what that looks like. We ought to be listening to survivors.
ELISE
Yeah. And at the beginning you had mentioned power too, and it feels like the sanction of the state is necessary for people who have a lot of power and can pay off victims, et cetera, the Harvey Weinstein, like no one's content with him apologizing. So I feel it also requires nuance. So as mothers, as friends, as you know, any matter of bosses, mentors, et cetera, what's the appropriate way to, if someone comes to you and sort of needs you to bear witness to something that happened to them, what's the best way to respond?
DEBORAH
First. I love the way you frame the question, right? Because there's this notion of bearing witness, I think really gets at what is often the need at that moment. The person is coming forward and, you know, may decide to, to pursue formal options. May not. But in that moment, they're often asking for not a whole lot of the person. And yet time and time again, the women I spoke to were disappointed by the reactions of, of those who loved them. And to a person, people were very clear with me that this wasn't malevolent, that this was not that the, you know, their, their roommate, or their mother, or their friend wanted to be cruel. Often the dismissal was phrased in gentle terms. So are you sure that it happened quite that way? Or do you think that you bear some responsibility or are you sure you want to ruin his life by coming forward?
And so like all of these ways that credibility discounting happens can feel, you know, sort of implicit and can be sort of couched in these benign terms. And yet it just felt so devastating for someone who wanted an ally in that moment and wanted the validation and the vindication of, wow. I believe that this happened to you. It shouldn't have happened to you. It was wrong. And I care deeply that it happened. What is it that I can do to help at this, at this moment in your life? What is it that I can do to support you? And again, it's often not a whole lot. I was told that would have been enough. I just wanted to hear that. And then I would have sorted through it. Or maybe I wanted someone to come with me to the police precinct to file a report. Or maybe I just wanted my friend not to invite the guy to the party on Saturday night. Maybe that was, that was the meaningful response that would have, let me know that I had, I had an ally that I had someone on my side on this and that it was wrong. And I matter.
ELISE:
No, absolutely. All of those things. Are you optimistic that things are getting any better that we're having these conversations?
DEBORAH:
Yeah, because we are having these conversations and we're having them more than we did, you know, five, 10 years ago. We, I think need to get better at responding, which is the impetus for the book. But if these stories aren't in circulation and if survivors aren't feeling able to come forward with their truths, then we're not going to be able to evolve as a culture. We're certainly not to be able to reform our law. And so I do feel hopeful that the movement is in the right direction.
ELISE:
This is such a tricky issue. And it's clearly an instance, for women in particular, though, obviously, as she mentioned, men can be victims as well, where there is just such a chasm between the idea of justice for victims and where we are today. And as we mentioned at the end in the context of restorative justice, so often the idea of jail time, doesn't actually feel like it will redress what was taken from us, or the pain, or, you know, it's, it's so complicated. It's so profoundly personal, which makes it distinct from really all other crimes. And I love this idea that she teases of the ways in which we have ideas about credibility, and they act within us in completely subconscious ways. And it's really a call to all of us to become a little bit more aware of what we're bringing to judgment and the way that we react to women.
So something that certainly made me think. And we are shaking this out of our systems, but it's going to take time. At one point, she writes about the author, Laurie Penny, in this, I'm going to read from her book. She recounts how her, her abuser “used a combination of threats and performative weakness to convince her and his other victims, that he was both too powerful to be crossed and too weak to survive being held accountable.” And Penny notes that women are really susceptible to this logic because most of us have been raised with the understanding that when men get upset, bad things happen, which I think is a really deep and profound undercurrent in our culture and something that we need to examine. Professor philosopher, Kate Manne calls this himpathy, which is our tendency to have sympathy for the man rather than the women.
And again, this goes to this idea of, oh, they have so much to lose. And for some reason we just think women can suck up the pain and move on, that unless they're destroyed, they should be able to get over it. And it's just so profoundly, unfair and untrue. Well, thank you for listening and I will see you next week.