It’s a familiar scenario. An exchange occurs in private. Only the two figures involved – a man and a woman – know what truly transpired. But once they leave that room and start to tell their version of events, the man is given the benefit of the doubt and the woman faces intense scrutiny and skepticism.
This is the basic set-up for any number of high-profile cases, stories of rapists and other sexual offenders evading legal prosecution or other consequences for years as their accusers were painted as gold diggers, political operatives, and compulsive liars.
In response to this incredulity, the phrase “believe women” emerged from the larger #MeToo movement, and it has inspired serious investigations into the statistics of false reporting, which are lower than commonly thought, and has provided much-needed pushback against smear campaigns against accusers in high-profile cases.
But “believe women” is getting thrown around by political strategists and official opinion-havers to support the Elizabeth Warren’s claim that Bernie Sanders told her, in a private meeting with no witnesses and no evidentiary support, that a woman could not win the presidency in 2020. This is not only a grotesque distortion of what “believe women” is supposed to mean, it undermines the good work the phrase’s use was doing.
The term “believe women” was never supposed to mean “believe everything that women say and don’t bother to investigate their claims”. The simplicity of the message has irked many – including me – in its ability to be misused and misappropriated since its inception, but many activists have taken it up in good faith to say believing women and believing victims is only the start of a process toward justice. But in the last couple days after Warren’s campaign first made the accusation and then double-downed at Tuesday’s debate (with an unfair and obviously biased assist from debate moderator Abby Phillip), many are using it to try to shut down any debate, investigation, or dissent. When Sanders’ campaign denied the accusation and supporters showed interviews going back decades of Sanders saying a woman could be president, plus evidence of Sanders’ wide support of female candidates in various campaigns, commentators remained unmoved. “Believe women.”
The language of abuse and trauma is creeping into political rhetoric, as if every interaction between a man and a woman these days can be understood as a potential violation. Virginia Heffernan wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “Sanders had gaslighted Warren over whether he told her a female candidate couldn’t win the 2020 election.” Gaslighting is a term for one person lying to their romantic partner so effectively and consistently that they start to question their version of reality. Had Heffernan simply said Sanders lied, it would not have given the accusation the melodramatic pull of centuries of stories of women being tormented and abused by the men in their lives. Lying is something politicians do. Gaslighting is something misogynistic monsters do.
The goal is to put the offense on a higher level than one of just lying. That way, if the Sanders campaign decides to point to all of the lies Warren has told throughout her career – that her father was a janitor, that she is Native American – her lies won’t matter as much because she’s just electioneering while his lies are rooted in misogyny. It’s a trick that still works for Hillary Clinton, who has repeatedly complained about the lack of support Sanders gave to her campaign, despite all of the evidence to the contrary. (Clinton, after losing the primary to Obama in 2008, appeared at two rallies with Obama and did 10 solo campaign appearances to help him get elected. Sanders, after losing the primary to Clinton in 2016, did three events with Clinton and 37 solo events.) Many of her supporters still claim this supposed lack of support is proof of Sanders’ “problem with women”.
This kind of dirty politics can be effective, but the real losers here are the women for whom “believe women” still means something. To turn it from a campaign for empathy to a cheap slogan to siphon off primary voters hurts the credibility of activists who have been trying to use it for good.
Christine Blasey Ford was deemed a liar immediately when she came forward withallegations of sexual assault by the then supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and commentators dug into her past to prove her untrustworthiness. Young gymnasts who complained about Larry Nassar were dismissed as exaggerating or lying. Early accusers of Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein were deemed golddiggers, looking for an easy settlement to shut them up. Even when there’s some form of evidence, such as when photographs show Donald Trump with E Jean Carroll, who accused him of rape, even while he insists he doesn’t know her, supporters are still willing to take his word for it.
There was an entire Golden Globe-nominated Netflix series called Unbelievable, about a real-life case of a woman who was tied up and raped in her own apartment. When police became skeptical of her story, for not behaving in a typical way for a victim, she was charged for filing a false police report. Her rapist – who went on to commit several more rapes – was eventually discovered and found guilty. Her story is far from the only one. Who knows how many offenders across the country were allowed to keep attacking women because police and other authorities disbelieved women trying to report their offenses.
There’s always been an element of “by any means necessary” in American politics, with tactics like George W Bush’s 2000 campaign telephoning primary voters in South Carolina to insinuate his opponent John McCain had an “illegitimate black child” being surprisingly common. But it’s frankly disgusting to see so-called feminists undercut the work of judicial activists all for a political win. Using “believe women” in a smear campaign can only work to support the big smirk and the eyeroll of the people we need most to sway.
Jessa Crispin is the host of the Public Intellectual podcast
This article was updated on 17 January 2020. The CNN moderator is Abby Phillip, not Abby Johnson, as we originally said.