“Believe All Women:” Should We Believe All Women Any More Than We Believe All Men?

Should We Believe All Women Any More Than We Believe All Men?

Republicans do not own hypocrisy, but they have an extraordinarily tight hold on it, seeming to embrace every instance where they can be hypocritical in messaging. The latest example is, of course, the Republican agenda to take down Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden with a claim that he sexually assaulted Alexandra Tara Reade twenty-seven years ago. The time factor is less significant than her rapidly escalating and changing story. Reade apparently worked for Biden from December 1992 to August 1993, according to employment records she filed.

Biden’s response to Reade’s “new” allegations—because the ones she made appropriate to the time of said occurrence have no relationship to her present claims—were unequivocal: “Women deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and when they step forward, they should be heard, not silenced. The second is that their stories should be subject to appropriate inquiry and scrutiny.” Of course, the media appear to prefer repeating what amounts to malicious gossip than investigating these allegations. In case anyone missed Biden’s public comment, he appeared on Morning Joe talk show to state once again, “No, it is not true. I’m saying unequivocally it never, never happened. And it didn’t. It never happened.” Hard to know what more Biden could say and still be civil about the repeated, insulting questions journalists have posed to him?

This agenda of the far right—now known as the Republican Party—and some on the far left (coming out of Bernie Sanders’ campaign) is that ALL women should be listened to when they have something negative to say about DEMOCRATIC candidates. The countless women who have made claims of rape, sexual assault, and workplace sexual harassment about Republican men, are to continue to be ignored. The mainstream news media, unfortunately, has compiled and decided to disregard multiple claims by at least twenty-seven women against Trump. In their “fair and balanced” way, news media personnel are running with and searing into public consciousness the story about Reade’s escalating claims against Biden. If it sounds familiar, it is. Remember “her emails?”

The starting point for this discussion about sexual harassment or assault is with the woman, not the allegation. Are all women to be believed, regardless of what they say, or the validity of the allegations? Should we believe everything out of Sarah Palin’s outrageous mouth? Kellyanne “alternative facts” Conway? How about believing everything that Michelle—“John Kerry’s self-inflicted wound” in Vietnam—Malkin says? Ann—"All pretty girls are right-wingers”—Coulter as a credible witness? Katie—"Biden locked unaccompanied children in cages”—Pavlich? Betsy—of lying about numbers and data—DeVos? Pam—accepting a $25,000 campaign donation from Trump’s “charitable” foundation and then decided NOT to investigate fraudulent Trump University— Bondi? Laura—there “is no scientific basis for social distancing” in a pandemic—Ingraham? Sarah Huckabee—lie a minute—Sanders? Claudia—“All mass murders are Democrats”—Tenney? Tomi—“the Left says we must be tolerant of Sharia law and stoning gays”—Lahren? How about the entire factory of blondes mouthing propaganda out of Fox? Point of fact: women are very capable liars, just like men.

If you are uncertain about whether or not all women should be believed under every circumstance, stop and consider how you might feel if a woman suddenly accused your husband, your brother, your son of sexual assault? You know there is no truth to the public accusation, but the allegations become the new “alternative facts” public truth.

There is ample reason to listen to a woman’s claims of sexual assault or sexual harassment, but there is also a critically important need to investigate the claim impartially. All women should not be believed any more than we are to believe all men.

When the claims made are no longer credible, stop repeating them.