A bit over two weeks ago, Gretchen Carlson, former Fox News host, filed a lawsuit against Roger Ailes, the former head of Fox. In it, she alleged that Ailes had sexually harassed her for years -- in fact, for most of her tenure at Fox.
After the lawsuit was filed and went public, Fox released hand-written notes between Carlson and Ailes, many of which were sent after the alleged incident. One of the notes even includes a smiley face.
For many Fox employees and members of the general public, this was proof that Carlson’s story was a lie, that the suit was just a way for an angry employee to strike back against her company. If Ailes had really been harassing her, they argued, would she have stuck around? Would she have written him little notes, one even with a smiley face on it? Obviously, that must mean they had a good relationship, that she liked him, that they were on great terms. People don’t send handwritten notes to their harassers.
When I read those articles and heard those comments, I felt aggrieved and angry. Because there is a strong burden on abuse victims, one that stands entirely apart from whatever they may have experienced. Not only must they withstand harassment and ill treatment, they must be, in every conceivable way, above board, perfect. If an abuse victim is not, if their story is not one that appears sparkling clean, it is all too easy for the public to jump on the bandwagon of finger pointing, as those with little knowledge rush to attack the victim, to declare they must be desperate for attention, or vengeful, or sick.
We have to let go of this. Abuse victims will not have the perfect story, because there is no version of a situation involving abuse that could be considered perfect. Sure: there are some that sound better than others. The person said no firmly and clearly, and many times. The person reported the abuse the very first time it happened, or they quit the very first time, or they left the relationship the very first time.
But not every victim of harassment or assault or abuse has that story. In fact, for most people, the details of what happened to them do not follow a neat trajectory. Instead, things are hazy. There was a time when the comments seemed joking and you didn’t want to make a fuss and appear badly in front of coworkers. Or the person who was doing and saying terrible things was your boss, and you were afraid to speak out. Or the harassment happened so insidiously over such a long period of time that you didn’t realize what was going on until things had become far more serious than you ever could have anticipated.
Or, you thought it would be easier to stay quiet rather than being tried in the court of public opinion and being found guilty for no reason other than that you alleged abuse and were not perfect.
We cannot do this. We cannot send the message that abuse stories only matter if the people telling them are past reproach, if the progression of events is snowy white. That is simply not fair. Abuse and harassment often take place in a hazy swirl of confusion, where clarity can only be gained when one is looking back. When Carlson is attacked in the news by people who claim that her story is false because she stayed, they send that same message to anyone who has ever stayed. They tell them, “If it was as bad as you say, you would be gone. So you must be lying.”
But people stay. Every day, people stay at jobs where they are sexually harassed, in relationships where they are treated poorly. Does that mean they are not in pain? Does it mean that they are ok with what is being done to them? Of course not. It means that finding the courage to leave is unimaginably difficult.
Most things in life don’t happen in a neat little box with a bow on top. There is no one size fits all narrative to any human experience: falling in love, finding your first job, becoming a parent. None of those things have one, overarching story that is true for all of us. Why should harassment and abuse be any different?
The thing we all need to understand is that abuse narratives don’t have to be perfect for them to be true.
