Regardless of political affiliation or ideology, when a politician--typically a man--is accused of sexual misconduct, the script he uses to respond is the following: his accuser--typically a woman--tells her story to the press.
The accused perpetrator then holds a press conference, denying everything that she has said and builds a case against her in the court of public opinion. Behind-the-scenes his surrogates sully her name in political circles, pretty much guaranteeing that she will not be hired by anyone in the industry.
Ultimately, considering the lop-sided power dynamics of the perpetrator and his accuser, some previously unknown woman’s character and the veracity of her story are picked apart by everyone from media pundits to public commenters on news sites--long before a fair and thorough investigation is conducted.
Such a process is grueling, cruel, and far from just, further traumatizing survivors who risk everything to go public with their stories. In politics, there is one party, in particular, this conventional script hurts: the Democratic Party.
Perceived as the major political party from the left, the Democrats rely on women, people of color, those who self-identify as LGBTQ+, immigrants, and college students--the same constituents who are also the most vulnerable to experience sexual harassment and assault at some point in their lives--to fundraise, recruit candidates, staff campaigns, and win elections. President Joe Biden emerged as the frontrunner in a crowded primary field, thanks to Black voters in South Carolina. He won the presidency in a bitterly divided country, riding on a multicultural coalition of largely women, and Black and young urban professionals in key major cities like Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Milwaukee.
By contrast, the Republicans rely heavily on a largely white, male and older constituency to win elections. They are less inclined to prioritize diversity within their ranks and create workplaces that are welcoming and inclusive of women and underrepresented minorities.
Sexual violence dogs both major political parties as sexual harassment and assault thrive in workplaces and settings--like politics!--in which the perpetrator knows that he wields more power over his victim and will probably get away with his illegal behavior. Neither Party has taken the steps necessary to root out sexual violence in their ranks, but how they have responded to date speaks to the constituencies they need to win.
The Republican Party reacted swiftly to Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney’s perceived disloyalty to Donald Trump by stripping her of her leadership roles in the U.S. House of Representatives. Meanwhile, they meted out no such punishment to Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, who has been indicted for child sexual abuse.
The Democrats, afraid of alienating any one from their fragile multicultural coalition, have relied on the playbook recently utilized in New York by Governor Andrew Cuomo and now New York City mayoral candidate Scott Stringer: hold a press conference, deny all allegations, and have surrogates attack the character of the accuser. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has left it up to individual candidates to resign or drop out of the race and their supporters to hold them accountable (or not)--a hands-off approach that deeply harms survivors and the Party.
Not surprisingly, most survivors of sexual violence never report what has happened to them. False reporting is incredibly rare at around 5 percent.
In politics, reporting is even less likely even during the #MeToo era. Not only is retaliation and getting black-balled in the industry a real possibility, but the public scrutiny of calling out a politician opens up the survivor to further attacks and trauma, and accusations of weaponizing sexual violence for political gain.
Research has shown that women, candidates of color, and those who self-identify as LGBTQ+--again, the constituencies also likely to self-identify as survivors of sexual violence--are already vastly underrepresented in elected positions at all levels of government.
They are also less likely than white, cisgender and heterosexual men to run in the first place, which does not bode well for a political party that has built its reputation on inclusiveness and diversity. If the party is to remain relevant to these constituencies and truly represent the interests of all, it must demand that its elected leaders and candidates flip the script on how to respond to sexual violence.
I lead a subcommittee of the multiracial Survivors’ Agenda coalition, comprised of dozens of local and national gender and survivor justice organizations, which has developed a paradigm-shifting process for how political leaders, candidates and campaigns address sexual abuse allegations in their ranks. For one, our process calls for believing the reporting party, as false reporting is incredibly rare.
Approaching these cases from a place of compassion and belief, allows for survivors’ stories to be heard and properly investigated--ideally, by a trauma and survivor-informed expert. In addition, a truly survivor and trauma-informed investigatory process provides accommodations and healing services for the reporting party, such as counseling and a change in work structure if the alleged perpetrator is a supervisor or co-worker.
What a political leader, candidate or staff member should not do is hold a press conference and/or have a campaign surrogate call into question the veracity of a reporting party’s story. In fact, part of our process is a media pledge we plan to widely disseminate to political candidates and campaigns, which requires people to respond to such events in the following way:
“I do not have firsthand knowledge of these events and cannot comment directly; or I commit to truthfully sharing all of my personal knowledge of the events in question in cooperation with the fair investigatory process in place to address this matter.”
Sexual harassment and assault are so ubiquitous in the political sphere that our organizations are constantly inundated with stories and having to respond to the latest sex scandal in the press. A key political ally had a knee-jerk reaction to our media pledge, citing that it would knee-cap the candidates that took the pledge from those who didn’t. What a sad statement that we cannot guarantee women’s safety and autonomy in political workspaces!
The Democratic Party, its surrogates, and constituents deserve and can do better.
Elisa Batista is a survivor of sexual assault, a mother of two teenagers, and a campaign director with the digital gender justice organization UltraViolet.
