“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 this writer – 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 Johnson), many are using it to try to shut down any debate, investigation, or dissent. When Sander’s campaign denied the accusation and supporters showed interviews going back decades of Sanders saying a woman could be president, plus evidence of Sanders’s wide support of women candidates in various campaigns, commentators remained unmoved. “Believe women.”
The language of abuse and trauma is creeping more and more 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 ten 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’s “problem with women.”
While this is effective dirty politics, 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.
The rest.
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 this writer – 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 Johnson), many are using it to try to shut down any debate, investigation, or dissent. When Sander’s campaign denied the accusation and supporters showed interviews going back decades of Sanders saying a woman could be president, plus evidence of Sanders’s wide support of women candidates in various campaigns, commentators remained unmoved. “Believe women.”
The language of abuse and trauma is creeping more and more 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 ten 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’s “problem with women.”
While this is effective dirty politics, 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.
The rest.