It is so ‘normal’ that it doesn’t make front page news.
An extract from writer and longtime advice columnist E. Jean Carrol’s new book What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal was published online in New York’s The Cut over the weekend and is an excruciating read.
I think I read this without being able to draw breath. A portrait of a generation of ordinary men and their entitlement.
An Excerpt From E. Jean Carroll’s ‘What Do We Need Men For?’ https://t.co/PxWanL0xWM
— Virginia Trioli (@LaTrioli) June 22, 2019
In the piece Carroll recounts 21 of the ‘Most Hideous Men’ of her Life.
“It is a list of the 21 most revolting scoundrels I have ever met. I started it in October 2017, the day Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey published their Harvey Weinstein bombshells in the New York Times. As the riotous, sickening stories of #MeToo surged across the country, I, like many women, could not help but be reminded of certain men in my own life.”
The last man on her list is Donald Trump and she explains, in astonishing detail, the night he sexually assaulted her in a change room in the department store Bergdorf Goodman in New York.
Trump denies it.
In comments to reporters on Saturday, President Trump again denied that he had sexually assaulted the advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s. https://t.co/jVMF0hE08z
— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 23, 2019
He also denied knowing who Carroll was but a photograph that accompanied the piece with Carroll and Trump together at a party in 1987 with their respective spouses at the time reveals they had definitely met.
The White House today issued a statement from President Trump denying that he ever met E. Jean Carroll in his life. Here's the @NYMag photo of the two of them talking in 1987 pic.twitter.com/RqVH4Qe2mx
— David Frum (@davidfrum) June 21, 2019
Carroll knew Trump would deny the allegations: he has done so consistently.
“…he has denied accusations of sexual misconduct made by at least 15 credible women, namely, Jessica Leeds, Kristin Anderson, Jill Harth, Cathy Heller, Temple Taggart McDowell, Karena Virginia, Melinda McGillivray, Rachel Crooks, Natasha Stoynoff, Jessica Drake, Ninni Laaksonen, Summer Zervos, Juliet Huddy, Alva Johnson, and Cassandra Searles.”
A very hard read. How many women does it take to accuse a man before they are believed? 15? 50? 100? I will go to my grave not knowing how how ppl vote for a person that they know is a sexual predator? https://t.co/O9smmCA7f1
— Sue Middleton (@Middleton_Says) June 23, 2019
Who did she tell?
Two friends, in the immediate aftermath, both of whom confirmed this to the Cut.
Why has she waited to ‘come forward’ until now?
In her words: “Receiving death threats, being driven from my home, being dismissed, being dragged through the mud, and joining the 15 women who’ve come forward with credible stories about how the man grabbed, badgered, belittled, mauled, molested, and assaulted them, only to see the man turn it around, deny, threaten, and attack them, never sounded like much fun. Also, I am a coward.”
Had it not been caught on tape does anyone believe Donald Trump wouldn’t have denied bragging about being able to ‘grab women by the pussy’?
It was caught on tape. We all heard him say that. He actually bragged about using his fame to sexually assault women.
Yet we are expected to take his denials of sexual assault as gospel? And we’re supposed to doubt the veracity of the different versions of hell recounted and retold by 15 different women of being sexually assaulted by the same man?
“I am a member of the Silent Generation. We do not flap our gums. We laugh it off and get on with life” https://t.co/AfmgdwTfoL pic.twitter.com/vW6ilqx9ch
— The Cut (@TheCut) June 21, 2019
E Jean Carroll’s is another credible account of a serious crime being allegedly perpetrated by the man who is now President of the United States and we are so acclimatised to it that it doesn’t make front page news. It barely rates a headline.
It is frankly astonishing that the @nytimes is treating a credible accusation of rape against the president by a well-known journalist as *a book publishing story* https://t.co/60I7LxsocU
— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) June 22, 2019
How did we get here?