I don't read many columnists at The Nation, but I have read Pollitt off-and-on for many years (and it was a thrill to get to have dinner with her last year, when she and Steven Lukes were in town). Here's her sensible take on the Reade business (earlier coverage). I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to learn from Pollitt's essay that Kate "enough about my book, what do you think of my book?" Manne has been demanding that everyone take Reade seriously; Pollitt's response is apt:
Many studies show that most women who say they have been sexually assaulted are telling the truth. However, when you’re dealing with actual individuals, it isn’t good enough to go with generalities. (As Susan Faludi clearly established, #BelieveAllWomen is a right-wing canard.) Otherwise, you get arguments like those of the feminist philosopher Kate Manne, who writes in The Nation that Biden is “the type” of man who would sexually assault Reade, because he has “a demonstrated history of handsiness.” That’s like saying a man accused of armed robbery is “the type” because he was in the habit of shoplifting. Touching women, invading their space, commenting on their bodies, looking them up and down are all regrettably common, especially among men of Biden’s generation; impulsively assaulting a staffer in a public hallway, not so much. Both behaviors may spring from “the same sense of privileged male entitlement,” but they are different in kind.
Manne takes my colleague Joan Walsh to task for writing in a recent opinion piece that there is “no evidence” that Biden sexually assaulted Reade. Reade’s accusation is itself evidence, Manne writes, “though there remains room to disagree on its strength or probative value.” I’m sorry, I don’t understand that at all. Allegations should lead to further investigation, but they are not evidence on their own. If I allege that my business partner cheated me or my doctor committed malpractice, that is not evidence that they did so. It is just my claim. Evidence is what I bring to support my allegation, not the allegation itself. To say otherwise is to argue that everyone accused rightly starts out with one strike against them. After all, someone accused them. Smoke, meet fire.
If every piece of evidence for an accusation is a brick, and there’s something the matter with each of them, do you have a wall or just a pile of bricks? I think you have a pile of bricks. It is possible that Reade endured some form of sexual harassment while working for Biden: the handsiness mentioned by many women, for example. The assault? The retaliation? Little evidence, and no proof. Her supporters compare her favorably to Christine Blasey Ford, who waited even longer to come forward with her accusation that Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her at a party when they were both in high school. Democrats believed Ford, they say, and doubt Reade for political reasons. There may be some truth to the claim that Democrats were eager to believe Ford and are reluctant to believe Reade, and it may even be true that some find Ford more credible because, unlike Reade, she has led a solidly middle-class life of professional accomplishment and respectability. But it’s also true that Ford did not change her story, testified under oath, took a polygraph test, and had four sworn affidavits from people she told about the incident plus her therapist’s notes.
Manne was presumably invoking the philosopher's assumption that (non-legal) testimony by an interested party is "evidence"; but as Pollitt points out (and as Joan Walsh was reasonably supposing), it isn't very compelling, especially when it has all the problems that Reade's has. And it's not legal evidence, unlike Ford's statements, which were legal testimony.
UPDATE: Ms. Pollitt points out to me that Professor Manne has apparently changed her view! Pollitt no doubt deserves the credit for getting through to her. (See also the amusing exchange with Joan Walsh, whom Manne wrongly attacked.)
Recent Comments