"Believe women" is an American political slogan arising out of the #MeToo movement. [1] It refers to accepting women's allegations of sexual harassment or sexual assault at face value. The phrase grew in popularity in response to the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination.
Jude Doyle, writing for Elle , argues that the phrase means "don't assume women as a gender are especially deceptive or vindictive, and recognize that false allegations are less common than real ones." [1]
In 2017, Megan McArdle urged readers in an opinion column in Bloomberg to "Consider the consequences of #BelieveAllWomen", outlining cases in which sexual assault allegations later turned out to be fraudulent. [2]
Rebecca Traister, writing for The Cut , calls the phrase "compelling but flawed": it is often recast as "believe all women", and used as a "deeply problematic" and "clumsy imperative" that has "enfeebled the far more important argument that we should encourage them to speak more, and listen to them more seriously when they talk". [3]
"Believe all women" is a controversial alternative phrasing of the expression. Monica Hesse writing for The Washington Post argues that the slogan has always been "believe women", and that the "believe all women" variant is "a bit of grammatical gaslighting", a straw man invented by critics so that it could be attacked, and that this alternative slogan, in contrast with "believe women", "is rigid, sweeping, and leaves little room for nuance". [4] However, Robby Soave writing for Reason disagreed with this interpretation, arguing that "#MeToo advocates demanded a presumption of belief for every individual who claims to be a sexual misconduct victim: i.e., believe all women", noting that Susan Faludi of The New York Times admitted to having "encountered some feminists who seemed genuinely to subscribe to the more extreme interpretation of the hashtag." [5]
In April 2020, a number of politicians and commentators discussed the Joe Biden sexual assault allegation in relation to the "Believe women" slogan. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized what she regarded as a lack of integrity relating to the issue: "If we again want to have integrity, you can't say, you know — both believe women, support all of this, until it inconveniences you, until it inconveniences us." [6] The National Review criticized what it considered to be Biden's hypocrisy in "his demand that Americans must believe women as a matter of unwavering reflex" during the Kavanaugh nomination. The editors said, "we hope that this incident has taught Biden that his previous approach toward accusations of sexual assault was dangerous, illiberal, and ultimately untenable." [7] On the other hand, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand stood by Biden and remarked, "When we say 'believe women,' it's for this explicit intention of making sure there's space for all women to come forward to speak their truth, to be heard. And in this allegation, that is what Tara Reade has done." [8]
According to The Atlantic , the adoption of a rule in Britain according to which law enforcement should believe reports of sexual assault and consider complainants to be victims led to improper police investigation of claims and the overlooking of contradicting evidence, resulting in the collapse of prosecutions and false accusations against the accused. [9] [10]
On September 28, 2018, the dating app Bumble took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times saying simply, "Believe women". [11]
Anita Faye Hill is an American lawyer, educator and author. She is a professor of social policy, law, and women's studies at Brandeis University and a faculty member of the university's Heller School for Social Policy and Management. She became a national figure in 1991 when she accused U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, her supervisor at the United States Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, of sexual harassment.
The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) is an American nonprofit anti-sexual assault organization, the largest in the United States. RAINN operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline, as well as the Department of Defense Safe Helpline, and carries out programs to prevent sexual assault, help survivors, and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice through victim services, public education, public policy, and consulting services.
Juanita Broaddrick is an American former nursing home administrator. She alleged that she was raped by U.S. President Bill Clinton on April 25, 1978, when he was the Attorney General of Arkansas. Clinton declined to comment on the issue.
Brett Michael Kavanaugh is an American lawyer and jurist serving as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on July 9, 2018, and has served since October 6, 2018. He was previously a U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2006 to 2018.
A false accusation of rape happens when a person states that they or another person have been raped when no rape has occurred. Although there are widely varying estimates of the prevalence of false accusation of rape, according to a 2013 book on forensic victimology, very few reliable scientific studies have been conducted.
In late 2014, Canadian radio host Jian Ghomeshi was arrested and charged with four counts of sexual assault, and one count of overcoming resistance by choking, in relation to three complainants. He was charged with three additional counts related to three more women on January 8, 2015. On October 1, 2015, Ghomeshi pleaded not guilty to one count of choking and four counts of sexual assault. The trial began on February 1, 2016. He was acquitted of all five charges on March 24, 2016.
In April 2013, Emma Sulkowicz, an American fourth-year visual arts major at Columbia University in New York City, filed a complaint with Columbia University requesting expulsion of fellow fourth-year student and German national, Paul Nungesser, alleging he had raped Sulkowicz in her dorm room on August 27, 2012. Nungesser was found not responsible by a university inquiry.
Since the 1970s, at least 26 women have publicly accused Donald Trump, of rape, kissing, and groping without consent; looking under women's skirts; and walking in on naked teenage pageant contestants. Trump has denied all of the allegations.
Justin Edward Fairfax is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 41st lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2018 to 2022. A member of the Democratic Party, he is the second African-American elected statewide in Virginia, following Douglas Wilder. In 2019, he faced sexual assault allegations dating to 2000 and 2004, which he denied. In 2021, he was a Democratic candidate for Governor of Virginia. He finished fourth in the Democratic primary with 3.54% of the vote.
#MeToo is a social movement and awareness campaign against sexual abuse, sexual harassment and rape culture, in which women publicize their experiences of sexual abuse or sexual harassment. The phrase "Me Too" was initially used in this context on social media in 2006, on Myspace, by sexual assault survivor and activist Tarana Burke. The hashtag #MeToo was used starting in 2017 as a way to draw attention to the magnitude of the problem. "Me Too" is meant to empower those who have been sexually assaulted through empathy, solidarity and strength in numbers, by visibly demonstrating how many have experienced sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace.
On July 9, 2018, President Donald Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. When nominated, Kavanaugh was a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a position he was appointed to in 2006 by President George W. Bush.
Christine Margaret Blasey Ford is an American professor of psychology at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She specializes in designing statistical models for research projects. During her academic career, Ford has worked as a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine Collaborative Clinical Psychology Program.
Wasted: Tales of a GenX Drunk is a 1997 memoir about alcoholism, binge drinking, and hookup culture at Georgetown Preparatory School, written by Mark Judge. Judge recounts his early formative experiences growing up in suburbs of Washington, D.C. under Catholic school education. The author describes his secondary education at Georgetown Preparatory School as filled with heavy drinking and experiences of teenage alcoholism. The book criticizes Alcoholics Anonymous for its lack of acknowledgement of physiological causes of alcoholism as a disease process.
Ana María Archila is an American attorney and activist serving as co-director of the New York Working Families Party. She previously ran for Lieutenant Governor of New York in 2022. She was formerly the co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) and a co-founder and co-executive director of Make the Road New York and Make the Road Action.
#HimToo is a social movement supporting male victims of sexual assault and false rape allegations. The reaction to the #MeToo movement started in October 2018 after a tweet from a mother about her son being afraid to date because of a climate of false rape allegations. It rose to greater prominence during the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination. The #HimToo movement was a response to the sexual assault allegations from the #MeToo movement.
"A Scary Time" is a 2018 feminist protest song and viral video written and performed by Lynzy Lab. It is based on the comment by former United States President Donald Trump that "it's a very scary time for young men in America", which he said amid the sexual assault allegations against his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The song contains a list of situations in which men have harassed, coerced, or sexually assaulted women in the U.S. The list also includes some of the past responses from the American public, media, and legal system to women who have accused men of such acts.
Nathan James Robinson is an English-American writer, political commentator, and editor-in-chief of the left-wing progressive Current Affairs magazine, which he founded in 2015.
Douglas Holden Wigdor is a founding partner of the law firm Wigdor LLP, and works as a litigator in New York City, specializing in anti-discrimination law. Wigdor is best known for representing seven victims of alleged sexual abuse by Harvey Weinstein, the hotel maid in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexual assault case, over twenty employees at Fox News in sexual harassment and discrimination cases, and NFL coaches Brian Flores, Steve Wilks, and Ray Horton in a 2022 class action lawsuit against the National Football League alleging racist and discriminatory practices against Black coaches.
Her Majesty's Advocate v Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond was the 2020 criminal prosecution of Alex Salmond, the former First Minister of Scotland, for allegations of sexual misconduct. Salmond faced 14 charges, mostly of sexual assault. The trial began on 9 March 2020 at the High Court in Edinburgh and concluded on 23 March 2020 with the jury acquitting Salmond of all charges: not guilty on 12 charges, and not proven on one of sexual assault with intent to rape. A further sexual assault charge was previously withdrawn by the Crown.
In March 2020, during that year's election campaign for President of the United States, Tara Reade alleged that Democratic nominee Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993 in a Capitol Hill office building when she was a staff assistant in his office. Biden denied Reade's allegation.