The Harvard professor has attempted to clear his name in the court of public opinion. Attacks on women who speak out should be resisted, writes Emily Hilton
August 16, 2019 13:46
In her op-ed in the New York Times, sexual abuse survivor, Jennifer Araoz, writes that “[Jeffrey] Epstein never operated alone. He had a ring of enablers and surrounded himself with influential people.”
This seems obvious. The #MeToo movement has highlighted the level to which abuse can go unacknowledged as long as those who prop up powerful men do not hold them to account.
Which is why I was shocked and appalled to see the number of Jewish publications across the world, including the JC, lining up to interview Alan Dershowitz as part of his comeback tour to clear his name after the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
Prof Dershowitz has been accused of sexual assault by a woman who was also abused by Epstein.
Since then he has launched a public campaign to clear his name, the prime feature of which seems to be to smear the person who came forward about Epstein.
Prof Dershowitz is a man who seems to have a perverse desire to question the age of consent and attitudes to rape.
Indeed, the fact that he has argued that being falsely accused of rape is somehow the same – or worse – to being a victim of sexual violence is a dangerous false equivalence.
Statistics from the UK suggest that the percentage of false accusations is, at best, six per cent of those who go to the police.
In fact, looking at crime stats, it seems that a man is more likely to be sexually assaulted himself than falsely accused of sexual violence.
But Prof Dershowitz probably knows this.
He is, like other powerful men in his position, relying on the fact that our society’s default position is that women are liars, and that they especially lie about being sexually assaulted.
He’s banking on his Harvard credentials and his huge public following to escape scrutiny and accountability for his actions.
In the court of public opinion, rich and powerful men tend to receive a lot of clemency. In a world where women who come forward are painted as sluts, prostitutes and “bad mothers”, men like Prof Dershowitz and Epstein flourish because of a society that is built on the notion that those who have power will never truly be held accountable.
Prof Dershowitz’s case also raises important questions about complicity and culpability.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said once that “not everyone is guilty, but all are responsible”. Our communal institutions – whether they be our newspapers, synagogues, charities or youth movements – have a moral duty to not give airtime to those who use their power to silence survivors of sexual violence.
Giving Prof Dershowitz carte blanche to denigrate and belittle victims of Epstein is not only unethical, it will have real life consequences for survivors who fear coming forward in case they aren’t believed.
In case they are also called, sluts, prostitutes or “bad mothers”.
There are of course those who may argue that that people are innocent until proven guilty.
The challenge to this is that the justice system is also a product of a paradigm about sexual violence that does not place its belief in the stories of survivors.
In this country, the Centre for Women’s Justice has threatened to sue the Crown Prosecution Service, claiming that it has failed in its duty to prosecute sexual assault cases.
You may not accept this line of reasoning. But don’t then enable the court of public opinion by giving people like Prof Dershowitz the opportunity to exonerate himself.
I am certain that almost everyone in our community would find Epstein’s actions reprehensible. But this incident speaks to our responsibility – as individuals and as a community – not to tolerate the normalisation of sexual violence.
