We should combat abuse and harassment, not start another hysteria

by | Nov 21, 2017 | Editor's Blog | 6 comments

The cry in the 1980s and early 1990s was “Believe the children!” as we began to understand that child sexual abuse was more common than most people knew. It started with a public awareness that turned into a frenzy and ended with show trials, including one in North Carolina. While we undoubtedly made progress in identifying victims and better protecting children, we also ruined a lot of lives by separating children from parents and jailing innocent people. It’s a cautionary tale as we pull the curtain back on the prevalence of sexual harassment and abuse of women by powerful men.

Back then, a backlash to many of the forces that defined the 1960s and ‘70s along with some brave survivors coming public with their own tales of abuse led to a proliferation of accusations. Psychologists told us that children couldn’t make up such stories so their tales were believed over the denials of those accused. As the hysteria overtook the country, we separated children from parents in nasty divorces, arrested daycare workers accused of fantastic tales and believed what now seem like obvious prevarications. The hysteria lasted for over a decade and ruined many innocent lives.

At the tail end of that period, I spent a few years doing child neglect and abuse investigations. I learned that we have a lot of sociopaths and compulsive liars who will use the legal and social welfare systems to wreak havoc on the lives of ex-partners, rivals or enemies with little concern for the wellbeing of their children. I investigated almost as many malicious reports as ones with merit. I also saw, first hand, what child abuse and neglect looks like and learned to take every accusation seriously. I learned, too, that there are degrees to neglect and abuse. Like much of life, there are a lot of gray areas.

When I hear, “Believe the women,” I worry about another hysteria and the creation of new type of victim. I think we need to take another lesson from the 1980s, “Trust, but verify.” When women make accusations of sexual harassment or abuse, we should take them very seriously, but we should also investigate the claims. The rush to judgment can do as much harm as good.

We need to acknowledge that not all abuse or harassment is the same and that circumstances and context matter. Men who make the work place uncomfortable with inappropriate boorish or juvenile comments should not be treated the same as predators who use their power to coerce or assault victims.  Some people can be taught or shamed into changing inappropriate behavior while others need to face far greater consequences including losing careers or going to prison.

The accusations are probably just beginning. In the coming months, we’ll see many more men in positions of power accused of inappropriate and abusive behavior. We would be wise to judge each case on its merits and beware of our most self-righteous instincts. We need to make sexual harassment and abuse unacceptable and ensure that victims feel safe in making accusations. We don’t need another era of mass hysteria.

6 Comments

  1. Annette K Tenny

    The use of the word convict is interesting. None of these allegations have, to my knowledge, resulted in criminal investigation much less charges being brought against anyone. Statuette of Limitations is an issue. Since legal recourse is out of the question in many instances, the only option is public awareness and who decides what is evidence in such a case.? The sad fact is very few women have NOT been sexually harassed and though there is a line between sexual harassment and sexual abuse, the only person who logically should be the one to draw the line is the victim.

  2. Jay Ligon

    The McMartin Pre-School (pictured above) case was the modern equivalent of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.

    Accusations were made in 1983. Arrests and the pretrial investigation ran from 1984 to 1987, and trials ran from 1987 to 1990. No convictions were obtained, and all charges were dropped in 1990. By 1990, the McMartin case had been the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history. The case was part of day-care sex-abuse hysteria, a moral panic over alleged Satanic ritual abuse in the 1980s and early 1990s.

    Under the banner of “believe the children,” defendants, families and the courts were embroiled in an impossible pursuit of the truth. Lives and reputations were destroyed. Shortcuts around due process resulted in a stew of hearsay and innuendo mixed with fantasy and threads of fact. There was a noble motive for this corruption. Child advocates saw that children were in danger, and some of them died in the hands of cruel and incompetent adults. Child advocates saw themselves as rescue workers ready to rush into a family and grab a child to save them from abuse. Once the government had the child, onerous obstacles were placed between the parents and the child.

    Each allegation was treated as a mortal danger to the child.

    Eventually, the child protection industry began to realize that every circumstance was not dire and government overreach was, in many cases, the greater danger to the family and to the child.

    Eventually, studies emerged that told the courts and child advocates that children, like adults, are capable of lying or confabulating.

    A flood of sex harassment allegations has appeared in 2017, shortly after voters elected a sexual predator to the nation’s highest office. Sixteen women alleged sexual misconduct against Donald Trump, and there was an allegation of child rape which remains in the shadows. Trump admitted to sexual misconduct on tape, bragging that his “star” status gave him privileges which transcended the law. He bragged about walking in on naked teenage girls at a beauty contest he owned. Peeping on naked girls was a privilege of his ownership of the pageant.

    The nation is now 26 years past the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings, a national spectacle which spanned a long weekend where the issue of sexual harassment was introduced to the nation. The all-male Congress was not equipped to understand the issue. Joe Biden was a deer in the headlights as the Committee Chairman in charge of the hearing.

    Even though the predator was confirmed and still remains an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, changes were made. Women were elected to high office. Laws were changed. Times changed, but the world has not been transformed.

    Last year white women were reluctant to hold Trump accountable for his sex crimes. The majority of white women voted for Trump who called his accusers liars, all sixteen of them, even when he admitted the same conduct they complained of. Between November 2016 and the early months of 2017, something changed.

    2017 is a different year, only months away from the election of a sexual predator to the White House, the tide has turned. The time between the posting of an allegation and the firing of an accused is short. The allegation is made on Monday, and there is an expectation that the accused will be ruined by Wednesday or Friday at the latest. MSNBC reporter Kasie Hunt wondered on Friday last week why Al Franken was still in the Senate after his accuser went public earlier in the week.

    By Friday, he had not given enough proof to the blood-thirsty media that he was not a real witch.

  3. sarah O'Keefe

    You did NOT just compare women to children AND use the word “hysteria” to do so.

    Oh yes, you did.

    Kindly reconsider your words. Better yet, stop talking and listen to women for a while.

    • Walter Little

      that’s histerical…

      • Norma Munn

        No, that is legitimate anger from a fed up woman. And “histerical” is spelled “hysterical.” Perhaps the history of the word will clarify for you why a woman will react with anger.

        “The term hysteria comes from the Greek word hysterika, meaning Uterus. In ancient Greece it was believed that a wandering and discontented Uterus was blamed for that dreaded female ailment of excessive emotion, hysteria.”

        One can be very annoyed with the careless wording of the article and still consider Thomas’ caution as reasonable. But never for one minute should any woman feel safe and comfortable when this country elects a sexual predator as president. Of course, the reactions to both the child abuse cases and the current allegations prove that a lack of judgement is not limited to so-called “hysterical” women.

        Just curious, but can anyone point to an instance of a police person being described as “hysterical” after firing their gun repeatedly at an unarmed person because they thought they saw a weapon or “felt” threatened. I’m willing to make a $10 bet that no one can within the past 10 years. (or 20, for that matter)

  4. Anna

    I’m so glad you wrote this. A friend and I who are old enough to remember the ’80s were quietly saying the same thing. Many adults now were too young to remember those times, and it’s important to remind people that you can’t convict anyone without an abundance of evidence.

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