Rape Culture, MeToo, and Whether or not to "Believe Women"
What I didn't get to say in my review of 'She Said'
Before the movie She Said, there was the book of the same name. The book’s subtitle is this: “Breaking the sexual harassment story that helped ignite a movement.” That movement is, of course, MeToo. Many have viewed this movement with suspicion, in part due to the hypocrisy within its ranks.
Possibly because of my longstanding investment in the cause of exploited actresses, I’ve been more friendly to the MeToo movement than many of my fellow conservatives. Part of my reasoning, as I have written elsewhere, is this:
The concern about the abandonment of due process. . . is not without merit, but it is overblown—especially considering that victims of sexual abuse have gone without due process for so long themselves. The injustice of false accusations is nothing to dismiss, to be sure. But when faced with the reality of decades (at least) of unjust sexual abuse, emphasizing concern over the possibility of future false accusations gives the appearance, if not the reality, of a warped sense of priorities.
Another reason why I’ve been more sympathetic to MeToo is that I missed the conservative memo to berate our culture for telling us to “believe all women.” It’s a good thing I missed the memo, too—for the slogan was never “believe all women” (as if women are inherently infallible), but rather “believe women.”
The Washington Post columnist Monica Hesse addresses this issue in her piece “‘Believe Women’ was a slogan. ‘Believe All Women’ is a straw man.” As she explains it, the phrase “believe women” means “allow yourself to believe that women are just as trustworthy as men have been believed to be for decades”—or, put another way, “Treat women seriously, and don’t automatically just believe the man.” Any Christian worth his salt-of-the-earth merit badge (er, grace badge) should have no problem agreeing with these statements.
Hesse elaborates on the difference between the real phrase and the made-up one:
“Believe women” was a reminder, not an absolute rule; the beginning of a process, not an end. It was flexible enough to apply to various contexts: Believe women . . . enough to seriously investigate their claims. Believe women . . . when they tell you about pervasive indignities — catcalling, leering — that happen to them and their friends when you’re not around. . . .
“Believe all women,” on the other hand, is rigid, sweeping, and leaves little room for nuance. It would imply that every single woman, everywhere, has always told the truth, on every occasion, about everything. I have never met a single feminist who believes that.1
One component of the MeToo movement is the idea that women, whose testimonies have largely been viewed with inherent suspicion, deserve to be heard just as much as men do. This idea, in and of itself, shouldn’t be controversial. The point isn’t “I am woman, hear me roar,” but rather “I am woman, hear me.”
Of course, the erroneous idea that women are inherently more trustworthy than (and superior to) men is promoted by many in our culture. My only point here is that the slogan “believe women” is a legitimate call for equal weights and measures (to borrow biblical language).
In short, justice should be blind—not deaf.
Justice for All
I’ve pointed out before that our culture has
adopted an explicit ‘eye for an eye’ stance toward sexual violence and harassment. Because women have been the victims for so long, many believe it’s time, not for the injustice to end, but for the tables to turn.
This is vengeance and vindictiveness, not justice. It is switching one form of evil for another.2
The reality is that justice should be impartial. “You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor” (Leviticus 19:15; Deuteronomy 1:17). “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors” (James 2:8-9).
Pushback against all injustice is biblically warranted, regardless of which political party is calling attention to it. So if women are at greater risk of sexual assault (and they are), and if belittling victims is still a cultural norm (which it is), then “Believe women” is an appropriate call for impartial justice. Straw-manning or smokescreening are inappropriate responses to this clarion call.
Likewise, if the media decries rape culture (the normalization and trivialization of sexual violence) while at the same time promoting porn culture (which normalizes and trivializes sexual violence), then it is legitimate for us to point out their hypocrisy and call for impartial justice.
Sexual violence is wrong, regardless of who the victim is, and regardless of who the perpetrator is. Sexual violence is wrong, whether it takes place on your street or on your screen. The Bible’s call for impartiality should motivate Christ’s followers to rise above petty political frays and honestly oppose societal sexual sin—of all kinds.
In short, justice should be blind—not bent toward either men or women.
Shame on Who?
I mentioned above that belittling victims is a cultural norm. That is not just my personal opinion. For example, the Biblical Counseling Coalition3 writes that we have a “culture of victim-blaming in which rape and assault victims are often said to be ‘asking for it’ by dressing too provocatively, going out alone too late at night, or drinking too much. The victim-blaming impulse shows up every time these stories appear.”4 As the BCC points out, victim-blaming happens “often,” and is evidenced practically “every time” a new case appears in the media.
To move this beyond the realm of theory and statistics, it may be helpful to give three concrete examples: one involving a lawyer, one involving a father, and one involving a community.
Lawyer. In October of 2022, Harvey Weinstein’s attorney said Siebel Newson (who accused Weinstein of rape) would be “just another bimbo who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get ahead in Hollywood” if she wasn’t married to Governor Gavin Newsom. The lawyer’s defense of “transactional sex” as a Hollywood staple (in order to protect his client) reveals a despicable double standard that elevates men and degrades women.
Father. After a college student received a guilty verdict for sexually assaulting a drunk woman in January of 2015, the student’s father publicly lamented how his son wouldn’t “be his happy go lucky self” anymore, now that his life “will never be the one that he dreamed about,” and that the court’s six-month jail sentence, which had “broken and shattered” his son, was a “steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action.” This reveals a callous disregard for the lamentable losses of the woman his son assaulted.5
Community. In August of 2012, when two Steubenville High School football players publicly and repeatedly sexually assaulted a high school girl from another state, various members of the Steubenville community “blamed the girl . . . for casting a negative light on the football team and town.” In the minds of many in this community, the roles of victim and perpetrator were perversely reversed.
My point, simply stated, is this: in a pornified culture like ours, the belittling of sex crimes—and their victims—will continue to be a tragically common occurrence. And just as society shouldn’t condemn rape culture while turning a blind eye to porn culture, so we shouldn’t condemn porn culture while turning a blind eye to rape culture. We must reject both—in all their manifold expressions.
A Silent Voice
For various and sundry reasons, victims of sexual violence often feel like they have no voice, no way to speak out in their defense. It is this sentiment which is embodied in She Said—both the movie (as a whole) and its title. History has shown how human nature tends to disbelieve women when they share their fears and experiences of sexual violence.
The tendency for societies to turn a deaf ear to nearly half the human race shows a disregard for women who, like men, are made in the image of God. Women, like men, are worthy of dignity and respect. Women, like men, have a voice.
Stories like She Said remind us that we need to listen.
As an example of what the phrase “believe women” is supposed to entail, Hesse includes this anecdote: “Over the weekend an exasperated medical student complained on Twitter that her male professor kept insisting IUD birth control wasn’t painful upon insertion, despite a classroom full of aspiring female doctors telling him differently. Dear heavens, believe those women!”
It should be pointed out that She Said avoids the “eye for an eye” stance on justice that other projects or entertainers take.
Founded in 2011, the Biblical Counseling Coalition (BCC) provides resources, connections, and training for leaders and laypeople alike, including pastors, students, psychologists, educators, and authors. BCC has a presence in nine countries across the globe.
This quote is used with the permission of the Biblical Counseling Coalition and is taken from its collated BCC E-Source Connection Partner Resource, July 2014 (p. 5).
The son displayed his own clueless callousness in his defendant statement, which included lines like “I just couldn’t make the best decisions and neither could she,” and “I want to show people that one night of drinking can ruin a life.” As regards that last statement, his victim, Chanel Miller, responded thus: “Let me rephrase for you, I want to show people that one night of drinking can ruin two lives. You and me. You are the cause, I am the effect. You have dragged me through this hell with you, dipped me back into that night again and again. You knocked down both our towers, I collapsed at the same time you did. If you think I was spared, came out unscathed, that today I ride off into [the] sunset, while you suffer the greatest blow, you are mistaken.”