What the Bill Cosby Mistrial Means for Sexual Assault Survivors
A barrage of sixty women came forward with identical allegations. The jurors in the Bill Cosby trial heard five days of prosecution testimony versus a six-minute defense from the 79-year-old comedian’s legal team. Cosby himself admitted in his 2006 deposition that he gave women sedatives for the purpose of having sex with them.
The jury still couldn’t agree that he was a rapist.
It goes without saying that the mistrial is an injustice for women and sexual assault survivors everywhere, but many saw it coming, despite the avalanche of evidence stacked against Cosby. If the comedian had happened to molest a woman there in open view on the courthouse steps, a part of me wouldn’t have even blinked at the continued presence of loyal supporters in their matching tee shirts, picketing homemade signs and chanting “Free Cosby Now.” These are the same people who just can’t understand why it took Cosby’s accusers so long to come forward, like the fact that they were raped by one of our country’s most beloved and powerful celebrities wasn’t enough to intimidate them into silence.
When the sexual assault allegations broke in late 2014, it dominated news coverage because it was shocking. During the trial however, there were only blips of obligatory coverage because, for the most part, America had moved on, as it will inevitably move on after the mild shock from the mistrial has tapered off.
If over fifty women can come forward with extremely similar, credible stories and still not be believed, then what hope does one have? Our society’s instinct is to doubt survivors of sexual assault, on top of sympathizing with their attackers: news anchors ask accusers what stopped them from fighting back, women are picked apart for being too drunk, wearing the wrong clothes, and doing anything that might have readily welcomed the worst moment of their lives. False rape reports happen, but not more often than for any other type of crime. The fact that the underreporting of sexual assault is actually far more common is repeated ad nauseum by feminists and crime statistics alike, but our culture has yet to get the message. Due to stringent statute of limitation laws and the arduous, emotionally draining legal process involved with reporting, many women have far more to lose by coming forward than they have to gain.
Still, we call them liars.
In 2016, Brock Turner — the Stanford college student who was convicted of raping an unconscious girl behind a dumpster, and then fleeing when bystanders intervened — was sentenced to a mere six months of jail time despite a minimum mandatory two-year sentence. In covering the Steubenville rape verdict in 2013, a CNN reporter lamented how the young girl’s rapists were “two young men that had such promising futures, star football players, very good students,” who “literally watched as they believed their lives fell apart.” Camille Cosby knows that, at best, her partner has cheated on her dozens of times with scores of different women, but dutifully appeared at the courthouse, smiling and greeting fans as though she were attending a movie premiere rather than her husband’s rape trial.
The instances of sheer denial exhibited by defenders of the accused in each case follow the same pattern. Fans of The Cosby Show don’t want to believe that America’s Dad is also one of America’s most prolific serial rapists. Parents don’t want to believe that the promising college student they raised would even think of doing something so horrible. It’s easier to dismiss a woman as a crazy, money-grubbing fame-seeker than to admit that someone you thought you knew and trusted was a predator all along. The Cosby defense team knew this, which is why they used every rape myth in the book in an attempt to tarnish Andrea Constand’s character and increase the likelihood that at least one juror would misunderstand the concept of “reasonable doubt.”
Many survivors don’t report their assault for a number of reasons, a common one being that with no physical evidence, their case would fall under the infamous and oft-used umbrella term of “he said, she said.” To the millions of survivors who didn’t and won’t report, the Bill Cosby mistrial is more than a gross injustice. These outcomes are not only active discouragement, but also confirmation. Every bizarre and terrifying bit of leniency given to rapists drives home the fear that nearly every assault victim has after being abused: no one will believe you.
I read that when Cosby first heard the jury was deadlocked, he smiled. Whatever he was thinking in that moment, it was probably the same thought, the belief that he would never face consequences, that encouraged him to move from victim to victim over the span of four decades. All in all, it appears as though much hasn’t changed since the ‘70s when, according to Cosby’s own deposition, drugging women in order to have sex with them was considered to be a pretty normal thing to do, at least to him anyway.
As Gloria Allred, who represents multiple women accusing Cosby of assault, said shortly after the mistrial was announced, “It’s too early to celebrate, Mr. Cosby.” Prosecutors plan on retrying Cosby’s case, and it’s important to remember that a mistrial is not the same as a not guilty verdict. But, the mistrial is a testament to the fact that our culture still prefers to doubt women, despite all evidence to the contrary. For this reason, Cosby is taking this as a win.
And likely, he isn’t the only abuser who will.
