It's not only George Stephanopoulos who believes this widely-held myth. Superficially, it makes sense, but it is very, very wrong.
Deborah Ramirez, who attended Yale University with Brett
Kavanaugh during the 1983-84 academic year, has claimed that Kavanaugh thrust
an exposed penis at her during a party of heavy drinking at Yale
University.during the 1983-84 academic year.
Kavanaugh's roommate in that fall semester, James Roche, was
not at the party but often talked to Kavanaugh when the latter returned at
night after being out with friends. He
argues "it is from this experience that I concluded that although Brett
was normally reserved, he was a notably heavy drinker, even by the standards of
the time, and that he became aggressive and belligerent when he was very
drunk." He concludes "I cannot imagine (Ramirez) making this
up."
Except in the case of federal judges and (perhaps) other
high-ranking federal officials, this is what is commonly referred to as an
"angry drunk." On ABC's Good Morning America (video below) Monday, Ronan Farrow,
one of the two investigative journalists who broke the Ramirez story, stated
And I think the fact that she took several days to consider
and really carefully consider that she had an evidentiary basis for this and
that other people were backing her account who had heard a the time and been
told, speaks well of her level of caution. This is not the behavior of someone
who is fabricating.
A legitimately skeptical Stephanopoulos, reflecting a common
misunderstanding, responded
Let me press you on that because that sentence really did
jump out at me when I read the article. You say at first she wasn't sure this
was Kavanaugh when you first came to her last week and then you
Explaining a plain truth about cases of sexual assault and
attempted sexual assault (and other offenses), Ronan stated
And because I would say that it's extremely typical of those
stories when you're dealing with trauma, alcohol, many years in between. I think
that the more cautious witnesses I've dealt with in cases like this very
frequently say "I want to take time to decide, I want to talk to other
people involved, I want to search myself, I want to make sure that I
affirmatively stand by these claims" in the face of what she knew would be a
crucible of partisan push back, which is what she's receiving now.
As Farrow noted, this is especially common in cases involving trauma. It is even more so in matters involving sexual misbehavior because in most societies, ours included, women are virtually trained to believe they're at least partially at fault.
I want to search myself. In real time, a victim often
believes that he or she should not speak up, maybe make a fuss, because it might greatly inconvenience
himself or cause unneeded harm to the perpetrator. The victim may not want to
cause distress to the guilty party because the incident might not have been
very serious, or he may just want to get on with his life.
People, men and women, lie. They lie especially when the
incident occurs because they're bitter, have an ax to grind, or want to gain
advantage by making an accusation. By contrast, if the victim speaks out months
or years later, emotions usually have faded and there rarely is an advantage to
the individual who is aggrieved, nor to the offender.
When women such as Dr. Ford and Ms. Ramirez reveal months
afterward that they have been victimized by incidents of a sexual nature, they
are performing a service little noticed or understood by the public, including
most journalists, Stephanopoulos in this incident. "When you're dealing with trauma,"
Farrow understands, but it's typical even in cases where trauma is not experienced.
As more women speak out, the voices of those who take time,
talk to other people involved, and search themselves will not be summarily
dismissed. Theirs may be the voice of conscience or of perspective, or of the
wisdom that "hindsight is 20/20."
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