McDonald: 'Believe all women' is a lie

The recent trial of the former President, Donald Trump, for rape and defamation made a mockery of the United States court system, confirming the suspicion held by many that politics is what determines guilt or innocence. It also exposed the ugly truth about the recent movements to glorify alleged rape victims: They do not show respect for women; they show contempt.

A woman with poor credibility and both political and financial incentives to lie suddenly announced that 30 years ago Donald Trump raped her in the dressing room of a New York City department store. She provided few other details, not even the year that it happened, yet her account was accepted by a New York City jury as sufficient to find Trump guilty in civil court of sexual assault (but not rape) and defamation, for having publicly dismissing the woman’s allegations as a complete fabrication. The jury awarded this woman $5 million.

Similar juries in Washington, D.C. have found January 6 defendants guilty of felonies for having toured the US Capital. For the first time in US history, American citizens are being held as political prisoners on US soil. A decorated US Marine is being held in New York City on second degree manslaughter for protecting the lives of subway passengers by subduing a raving lunatic with a prior history of 40 arrests. This is the stuff of Latin American dictatorships, yet it’s happening right now in this country.

“Believe all woman” became the slogan of an activist campaign several years ago on the heels of the “Me, too” movement that encouraged women to launch sexual harassment charges at any man who had ever hurt her feelings, or whom she simply desired to punish. Credibility was assumed by virtue of her sex—female. Clearly, though, no woman who now suddenly claims she was raped 30 years ago should be believed. She should be challenged. She should be ordered to produce clear and convincing evidence that her words are truthful, because the very allegation of rape carries the power to destroy a man’s reputation. How many recent accusations of rape would not have been made, had the women making them been told they would go to prison for lying, and for the same number of years that a man faces when found guilty of rape?

Ironically, not holding women to the same standard as men in the domain of rape allegations diminishes women. It is a condescension to tell women they are too weak, foolish, and powerless to set boundaries with men, to state their wishes, and, most importantly, to be held accountable for their own actions, in particular when they lie about what actually happened to them. Children are held to higher degree of responsibility than adult women today.

Men who go along with this reveal themselves to be weak, unable to stand up to female hysteria and manipulation. They allow themselves to be easily intimated by women—a thoroughly unattractive, anti-masculine trait. It leaves good women bereft of a needed masculine presence and partnership, which is why, from a simply selfish perspective, women in general should reject these so-called pro-women campaigns. Like feminism, they are not pro-women at all. They attack the feminine as much as they attack men. They are corrosive and undermine the social contract that is the foundation of a functioning modern society.

When our legal system becomes mired in a poisoned stew of political vendetta and sexual tribalism, we lose one of our most important bulwarks against anarchy—voluntary participation in the social contract between citizens and their government. Donald Trump’s detractors have long accused him of being “divisive,” yet this recent trial reveals an enduring truth: Trump is simply a lightning rod who attracts and then exposes all that is wrong within our nation. Far from a divider, he challenges us with the opportunity to clean up our messes. But that requires us to first acknowledge them.

Mark McDonald, M.D.
Co-host of the Informed Dissent podcast

Psychiatrist and author of United States of Fear: How America Fell Victim to a Mass Delusional Psychosis and Freedom From Fear: A 12 Step Guide to Personal and National Recovery