I wrote an article, however ineptly, making the case that Democrats should treat Tara Reade and her allegations that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her, with respect and understanding. I received 102 comments telling me I was wrong, a Trumpist, (ugh), a bot, or a Russian bad actor.
In the article, I tried to lay out how sexual assault plays out in the aftermath. I said that it’s not unusual for a lot of time to pass before a person can speak of such assault. I have personal experience in this area. I was sexually abused as a child and it took me 35 years before I could admit it to myself, let alone my family.
My family had a difficult time believing me. I was also assaulted several other times in my life. I was conditioned by the initial assaults into believing assault was my fault. I had no option of telling anyone else about it because they would get mad at me, blame me. I didn’t even do what Tara Reade did, which was to contemporaneously tell others about the assault. The uncle who abused me was mostly beloved by the rest of my family. For a long time, I fell into line with their views. I had no proof except myself.
It takes years, sometimes decades, to get over the shock, fear and shame of such assaults. Survivors see other people try to bring their attackers to justice and we see people attack the person making the accusation. That silences us and that is the point of those attacks, to silence us, make us shrink away.
Democrats are in danger of doing to Reade what Republicans did to Christine Blasey Ford. Ford had a more solid reputation. Reade has struggled in her life. Sexual assault and a lack of justice and empathy can f*ck a person up.
In my distress, I cut my arms, legs, abdomen, face. I would not hold up under public scrutiny were I to make my claims against a more established person. My mental health problems, caused in part by sexual assault, would be trumpeted as making me not credible.
How we treat Reade matters. She makes a plausible accusation. Biden makes a plausible denial. We can believe or not believe her. We can believe or not believe him. But we cannot pretend this doesn’t exist and we cannot win by shaming women who speak up.
Learn from past mistakes. Whatever you believe, refrain from maligning Reade. You don’t know for sure. I don’t know for sure. We can still have our primary and push our candidate but we need to address this with civility and empathy. Otherwise we drive away survivors and we are legion. You can’t afford to lose us. We can’t afford to lose you but if you too treat us with disdain and automatic dismissal, some of us will go — not to the other side but somewhere without shame and blame.