I have never listened to a woman's narration of sexual harassment/assault without...
... according her the respect of believing she is narrating the truth of her experience.
On the other hand, I have never been the responsible party conducting a formal investigation of a sexual harassment complaint, without examining every possible circumstance and every possible item of evidence. And doing so from a point of view that assumes no factual conclusion until after the complete collection and review of evidence is accomplished.
There is a real difference between saying "I believe her" or "I believe him" and saying "My belief about the truth of this matter is founded on the examination of a complete array of evidence."
What the impulse to say "I believe her/him" says about your own experience, your biases, and your assumptions will differ greatly from person to person.
Making an assumption about the source of someone else's impulse to say what they say about belief also reveals something about your own experience, biases, etc.
At some point, the signal-to-noise ratio becomes so disproportionate that the only ones who benefit are those who are deliberately attempting to advance a specific agenda.
At that point, justice gets crowdsourced, which serves no one well.
sadly,
Bright
