Trump saga casts light on sexual violence
How the public treats these women ... speaks volumes on how we view sexual assault in the U.S.
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has unwittingly forced a reckoning on sexual violence in America.
Ten women and counting have accused the Republican presidential nominee of sexual assault, with allegations going back three decades.
The public’s reaction has been fiercely split. Some insist it is easy to believe that a man who boasts he gropes women routinely would do precisely that. Others find the timing of the allegations suspect and question the accusers’ motives.
How the public treats these women — many with corroborated accounts — speaks volumes on how we view sexual assault in the U.S.
William J. Fitzpatrick, district attorney in Syracuse, N.Y., and chairman of the board of the National District Attorney’s Association, said that often the public’s first reflex is to distrust the vic- tim. “My office believes someone when they say they were sexually assaulted,” Fitzpatrick said. “That’s not true in the court of public opinion.”
The fresh cascade of allegations was unleashed against Trump after the release of a 2005 recording in which the GOP nominee is caught bragging to then Access Hollywood host Billy Bush about sexually assaulting women. His comments are disturbing not only in their vulgarity but also in their suggestion that wealth, power and privilege granted him impunity. Bush was fired from NBC’s
Today show this week. Trump has repeatedly defended the lewd banter as “locker room talk.” His wife, Melania, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday it was “boy talk.” The women who have come forward say these are not just words. They detail lecherous behavior that includes touching, groping and kissing without their consent.
Trump vehemently denies the allegations and fired back at his accusers, calling them “horrible, horrible liars.” During the final presidential debate Wednesday night, Trump called the accounts “fiction,” blamed Hillary Clinton’s “sleazy” campaign for the mounting allegations, and said “nobody has more respect for women than I do.”
“I’m skeptical about the timing of all of this dropping,”
Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough said in a panel discussion. Fox News host Howard Kurtz raised the same point. #NextFakeTrumpVictim became a trending hashtag on Twitter.
The public’s skepticism of these women, experts say, reflects a dangerous misunderstanding of their experiences: Most women don’t report sexual assault, and many women never speak of it.
According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, fewer than 4 in 10 sexual assault victims file a police report. RAINN President Scott Berkowitz said 44% of the victims who contact RAINN’s sexual abuse hotline are speaking about their abuse for the first time.
“I think one thing we see often when there’s an allegation against a high-profile person, often less high-profile than Trump, is that other victims start coming forward,” Berkowitz said. “That’s in part because they feel solidarity with the oth- er victims, but it’s also because there is safety in numbers.”
It was hard for people to believe that “America’s Dad” was accused of being a sexual predator. For years women had made allegations of sexual assault against Bill Cosby, but the public turned away until the numbers were too big to ignore. At least 60 women have now publicly claimed Cosby drugged and/or sexually assaulted them. He is expected to go to trial on sexual assault charges in June 2017.
It was hard for people to believe that the Catholic Church was covering up a decades-long child molestation scandal. A critical investigation by The Bos
ton Globe in 2002 jolted America awake. In the United States alone, more than 17,000 victims have reported sexual abuse.
Several of the women who have come forward with allega- tions against Trump say the 2005 recording served as affirmation. Natasha Stoynoff, a former
People magazine writer who said Trump forcibly kissed her during a 2005 interview, wrote that when she heard the recording she finally felt she wasn’t to blame (six people have come forward to back her account). Rachel Crooks, who told The New
York Times she worked as a receptionist at a real estate firm in Trump Tower in Manhattan when Trump kissed her without her consent, said she felt comforted reading an account from ex-Miss USA contestant Temple Taggart in May that closely mirrored her own. It made Crooks feel she was not alone.
When Trump said his comments about women were locker room talk, it put the culture of locker rooms on display. Athletes fought back and said this is not who they are.
As women come forward and allege Trump has committed these acts, it puts the culture of sexual violence on display. Let’s hope Americans fight back. This is not who we are.