Trump’s attacks on E. Jean Carroll perpetuate rape culture, advocates say – National | 24CA News
Donald Trump’s mocking and harsh assaults on E. Jean Carroll on CNN Wednesday night time — at some point after a jury discovered Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming her — will proceed to perpetuate rape tradition within the media and society, advocates say.
The former U.S. president and present candidate drew laughter and applause from some within the viewers when he referred to as Carroll “a wack job” and ridiculed her account of the assault that she testified to in court docket final week.
It was the newest denial of the decades-old incident by Trump, who filed an attraction Thursday of the jury’s resolution and the $5 million in damages awarded to Carroll. But advocates for sexual assault survivors and victims say it was the response from the gang — in addition to CNN’s resolution to permit the second to air in any respect — that disgusted them probably the most.
“It is not only heartbreaking, but enraging to see how little we have moved the dial,” Farrah Khan, government director of Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights, advised Global News in an interview.
“What that says to survivors who are thinking about reporting, what that says to other survivors who have reported … is that what they’re experiencing is trivial.”
Carroll, 79, advised jurors in Manhattan federal court docket that Trump, 76, raped her in a dressing room on the Bergdorf Goodman division retailer in Manhattan in 1995 or 1996, after which ruined her repute by denying it occurred.
Her defamation case involved an October 2022 publish on Truth Social through which he referred to as her allegations a “complete con job” and “a hoax and a lie.”
The nine-person jury concluded after lower than three hours of deliberations that Carroll had did not show it was extra seemingly than not that Trump had raped her. But jurors did discover Trump responsible for a lesser diploma of sexual abuse, and that the social media publish was defamatory.
Trump didn’t testify and his authorized crew didn’t mount a defence.
The verdict drew extra scrutiny to Wednesday’s CNN city corridor, which was introduced almost two weeks in the past and marked Trump’s first look on the community since early 2016.
Asked by moderator Kaitlan Collins in regards to the resolution and whether or not it could harm his possibilities with feminine voters within the 2024 marketing campaign, Trump bragged about his ballot numbers earlier than attacking Carroll, the jury, the decide and her testimony, which he referred to as “fake.”
He then raised a number of questions on Carroll’s testimony — why nobody witnessed the assault given it occurred in a public place, why it wasn’t instantly reported — that Khan and different advocates says perpetuates dangerous stereotypes and misinformation about sexual assault.
“Survivors are always listening and watching how people will respond to disclosures of sexual violence, and how people will deal with their truths,” mentioned Dalya Israel, government director of Salal Sexual Violence Support Centre in Vancouver.
“We are always waiting for backlash.”
Sexual assault and rape are among the many most underreported crimes. According to U.S. information from RAINN (the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), greater than two out of each three sexual assaults should not reported to police. Some of the commonest causes are fearing retaliation, fearing police gained’t do something and fearing there isn’t something police might do.
The National Sexual Violence Resource Centre says 63 per cent go unreported whereas in Canada, information from Statistics Canada has discovered solely six per cent of sexual assaults are reported to police.
Sexual assault for each women and men is extra frequent than theft, that information exhibits.
Carroll and her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, advised the New York Times on Thursday they’re contemplating whether or not to launch a brand new defamation declare towards Trump for his CNN feedback. An earlier defamation case, regarding feedback Trump made about Carroll when she first got here ahead in 2019 whereas he was president, is in authorized limbo over whether or not Trump’s feedback are protected as presidential speech.
Other organizations that advocate for sexual assault survivors have referred to as on CNN to apologize and even for CEO Chris Licht to be fired for permitting Trump on its airwaves.
“CNN’s town hall was a disaster,” Shaunna Thomas, government director of the U.S.-based group UltraViolet, mentioned in an announcement Thursday.
“He even mocked E. Jean Carroll the day after a federal court convicted him of defamation and sexual assault against her. CNN not only allowed Trump to do so — they enabled him.”
Khan says CNN ought to have at the very least minimize to business or allowed Collins to interject when Trump made his feedback about Carroll.
“They are participating in defamation,” she mentioned. “They are participating in the amplification of lies.”
A request for remark from CNN was not instantly returned.
Israel says media organizations ought to do extra to centre survivors’ experiences and trauma to counter hateful rhetoric, which she says can have widespread impacts.
“The ridiculing of people’s courage and truth and testimony is just going to have detrimental impacts to both people’s mental health and the way that they feel entitled to hold people accountable, but also their ability to have accountability,” she mentioned.
“There are people inside the system (of justice) who are influenced by people like Donald Trump.”
Khan, in the meantime, says she sympathized with Carroll’s feedback to the New York Times, the place she mentioned she was “upset on the behalf of young men in America” who’re being uncovered to “a cave-man view” of girls.
Pointing out these outdated views and changing them with empathy and understanding for survivors is essential to beat rape tradition, she provides.
“People don’t understand rape culture affects all genders, and it includes all people,” Khan mentioned. “It shapes our ideas of masculinity.
“When young men see one of the most powerful people in the world … dismiss, trivialize, mock sexual assault, that sends a very dark message.”
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
