Sexual abuse and harassment: Whom do we believe?

By UYLESS BLACK

Special to The Press

Time magazine published a list of 122 men who have been accused of sexually abusing someone else. (See http://time.com/5015204/harvey-weinstein-scandal/.) The periodical’s survey started with the time when Harvey Weinstein was cited in the media (autumn 2017). Thus, it does not include the accusations that have been made against Donald Trump.

I have listed below a summary of what the Time report had to say about the subject of male sexual abuse. These numbers are approximations as Time’s reportage is not consistent in its description of each incident/allegation or the alleged abusers’ reactions. Nonetheless, the numbers accurately reflect Time’s article. The percentages in this summary add up to over 100 percent because one incident in the report provides multiple entries to this list. Here is a summary of Time’s article:

Outright denial of the accusation: 40 percent

No comment or an equivocation: 30 percent

Acknowledgment of the accusation: 17 percent

Corroboration of accusation by 3 or more people: 33 percent

Monetary settlement of the accusation: 10 percent

My analysis of the Time article is anecdotal, non-academic, and subject to inference of the text in the article. That said, I have been careful to record the data in the article to compile this list.

What is to be gleaned from this information? I suspect it depends on one’s social and political leanings. For this writer: Regarding the men in Time’s list, men’s sexual predations upon females were verified by three women or more in 33 percent of the alleged abuses.

Not surprisingly, 40 percent of the men denied the accusations and 30 percent offered no comment or made an equivocal statement to the media. Approximately 17 percent acknowledged their mistakes. I read about one man committing suicide shortly after allegations about his behavior became public.

Who is to be believed?

While I was writing this article, The Associated Press (AP) released an article (by David Bauder, April 28, 2018) that Tom Brokaw, the famous former news journalist, has been accused of sexual misconduct by a former NBC and Fox News Channel correspondent, Linda Vester. Brokaw immediately denied the accusation, and over 60 fellow journalists, including many women, went to bat for Brokaw. Quoting the AP article:

She said Brokaw went to her New York hotel room once in the mid-1990s, proposed an affair, and tried to forcibly kiss her. She said he tried to kiss her one other time at her apartment in London and once grabbed her from behind and tickled her on her waist.

Brokaw denies these accusations, stating he never sought an affair with Vester, further saying he “may have leaned over for a perfunctory good night kiss” on the cheek in London. He continues, “I am angry, hurt, and unmoored from what I thought would be the final passage of my life and career, a mix of written and broadcast journalism, philanthropy, and participation in environmental and social causes that have always given extra meaning to my life.”

What was Brokaw doing in Vester’s hotel room in the first place? Who is to be believed: one accuser or the 60 supporters? Perhaps Tom only had the hots for Linda and no one else. Perhaps Linda is unhappy with Tom’s fame and her obscurity. Who knows except the two of them?

What is at stake with all these allegations and in some instances, confirmations? Reputations, livelihoods, and lives are at stake, all being played out in an ill-defined social and legal landscape.

Yes, ill-defined, but no means no. Regardless of DNA and the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, that fact has been lost to many members of our society.

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Uyless Black is an author, researcher and frequent Press analyst and commentator. He and his wife, Holly, reside in Hayden.