Are Lindsey Boylan’s accuations true? Beats me, although they’re credible in the sense that they certainly could be true. She alleges that New York Governor Andy Cuomo sexually harassed her. Boylan, who is now running for Manhattan Borough President, was an aide at the time, deputy secretary for economic development and as a special adviser to the governor. That makes it possible that Cuomo behaved as she says.
“I could never anticipate what to expect: would I be grilled on my work (which was very good) or harassed about my looks,” Lindsey Boylan, the former aide, wrote on Twitter. “Or would it be both in the same conversation?”
The details are a bit spartan, beyond “harassed about [her] looks.” There’s no claim that he touched her or tried to solicit sex. It wasn’t that salacious.
But the accusation itself is clear: Cuomo “sexually harassed” her. And there were witnesses. “Many saw it, and watched.” It could be that she is being overly sensitive, and that the “many” who watched don’t share her level of sensitivity, don’t agree that she was sexually harassed. But that’s not the response from the governor.
“There is simply no truth to these claims,” the governor’s press secretary, Caitlin Girouard, said on Sunday.
For her part, Boylan doesn’t want to talk about it. She refuses to answer questions. She won’t give any further details. She’s got her reasons.
“I have no interest in talking to journalists,” she wrote. “I am about validating the experience of countless women and making sure abuse stops. My worst fear is that this continues.
“And as @FKAtwigs said yesterday, my second worst fear is having to talk about and relive this,” she said, referring to the musician, who on Friday sued an ex-boyfriend, actor Shia LaBeouf, alleging he physically and emotionally abused her.
In other words, she wants room to accuse without the concomitant responsibility of her accusations being subject to scrutiny. She wants to “validate the experience of countless women” by conclusory accusation while simultaneously asserting that any challenge to her claim would victimize her again.
If her worst fear is that this continues, then her bringing it up out of nowhere would seem a pretty bizarre thing to do. But that’s the beauty of the argument, that one can accuse someone of an amorphous sex offense and then hide from all challenge behind the impenetrable wall of passive-aggressive victimhood.
To the complainers and their allies, this makes total sense. even if the putative trauma involved in this particular claim of sexual harassment might be just a wee bit overstated. The problem for Cuomo is that he has been an ally whenever it served his ends. Even when everybody knew “affirmative consent” was an unworkable concept, Cuomo rushed in to show women he was on their side. Cuomo did everything possible to deny male students the ability to defend themselves against claims of sexual misconduct. Andrew Cuomo believed women.
Until a woman accused him. Then he didn’t.
If this sounds familiar, it should, as Joe Biden quickly shed the taint of Tara Reade’s accusation of sexual assault. Or maybe even the most notorious unproven accusation of sexual assault that’s believed with certainty by so many because, well, they just believe, by Christine Blasey Ford.
The issue isn’t whether the accusations are true, as none have been tested through the mechanism society has required to determine whether sexual assault or harassment has occurred. Whether they’re “credible” is meaningless, even if seized upon by those who passionately seek a cudgel to avoid the absence of scrutiny.
The issue is the blatant irrationality, the flagrant hypocrisy, of “believe women” except when it’s someone we choose not to. Cuomo is all for believing women, except the accusation against him is false. Biden, the same. When some other guy is accused, they’re totally behind the notion that the woman must be believed. When it’s them, the woman is lying. It never happened.
This might all be excusable if they learned from their experience and came to the realization that men can be falsely accused, and even if women’s accusations are taken seriously, men must still be able to defend themselves from these accusations. Indeed, in Cuomo’s case, it’s the standard “she said/he said,” and she says he did and he says he didn’t. Under Cuomo’s approach before he was accused, she wins. Now she doesn’t because now it’s Andy.
With Andrew Cuomo’s name being floated as the potential Attorney General under Joe Biden, whose campaign promise is to return Title IX to the bad old days of unconstitutional deprivation of due process for male students because he supports “survivors,” the irony will be that two guys who have both been credibly accused of sexual misconduct will be instrumental in making sure that other men are denied the opportunity to challenge their accusers and presuming men guilty upon the mere accusation of sexual misconduct.
Either Cuomo’s guilty or he’s a hypocrite. Either Biden’s guilty or he’s a hypocrite. Either we hold onto the presumption of innocence, afford the accused due process, or we believe the women and condemn based on unproven accusations. As Biden, and now Cuomo, should realize, anybody can make an accusation. Just as they want the ability to deny it, so does every other person accused.
If they want to push the “believe women” line for political advantage, let them suffer the consequences they would force on others. If not, they’re just two guys who are just your ordinary, basic hypocrites pushing an irrational sham to pander to women. No amount of rhetorical gamesmanship changes it. Cuomo says Boylan’s accusations never happened. If Andy can say so, so can everyone else, and they, like Andy, get the benefit of the presumption of innocence.
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