David Sorensen is the second White House official to resign over abuse allegations after Rob Porter. The worrying sentiment in these two cases, along with the recent rise in accusations in Hollywood, is that these allegations are coming out of nowhere; however, that just isn’t the case.
These allegations are nothing new. From Harvey Weinstein back in Oct. 2017 to the latest allegations of these White House officials, the recent amount of powerful people being exposed in cases of sexual assault may seem staggering, but this is nothing new. Powerful people have been abusing their power for years, and the statistics regarding sexual violence are insane.
If one is rich, powerful, and has a grasp on multiple facets of society (like Weinstein, Porter or Sorensen), then one is able to worm their way into multiple people’s lives and dig their hypothetical claws into them to make people owe them favors. This type of power can buy a lot of silence in multiple industries, not to mention the fear of coming forward and being reprimanded due to one’s accusations.
The most deaf ears of all are those of the legal system. When you can afford to pay, one has the ability to silence the victims through settlements. Victims are legally bound from publicly speaking out about their situations of sexual abuse.
The Iowa Law Review conducted a study in March 2014 and found that cases of rape were routinely underreported and in dozens of cities, and when they were reported they were often dismissed with little to no investigation. The result of this is that there were very few reports or records of attacks, primarily because of disbelief. This disbelief allows those in positions of power to be automatically believed when they deny allegations of sexual abuse. If things do end up getting too out of hand, the abuser can just throw money on the problem until it goes away.
There is a worrying sentiment about what a typical abuser looks like. Multiple studies have shown that it isn’t usually a strange pervert in some dark alley that would pop out and grab someone, but it is often people the survivor knows. According to statistics published by the National Domestic Violence Hotline, 51.1% of female victims of rape reported being raped by an intimate partner and 40.8% by an acquaintance. The abusers can be pillars of the community, and when they are accused of rape or sexual assault of any kind, disbelief ripples throughout the community.
It’s hard to believe that important, powerful people can be perpetrators of sexual assault. Yes, Porter and Sorensen both stepped down. Bill Cosby went to trial. Weinstein was fired. But there are still massive waves of people who still support them and refuse to believe the worst about people in power, let alone openly denounce them for sexual assault. This is how the Sorensens and the Weinsteins of the world get away with it.