Noted attorney Alan Dershowitz has thrown cold water on the “Believe Women” caucus that shouts loudly on social media.
In an op-ed for The Hill, Dershowitz explained that there is “no scientific basis” for the gender stereotypes regarding truth-telling being bandied about in the media.
“An entire academic area of pseudo-science has arisen in a phony effort to prove that women claiming sexual assault are always, or almost always, truthful,” Dershowitz wrote. “I have studied and taught the subject for decades and I have seen no authoritative study that comes close to establishing a gender-based predisposition for truth-telling or lying in the context of sexual assault.”
We must judge people individually, on their own claims, instead of deciding their credibility based on gender or political bias, but there can be circumstantial evidence in “he said/she said” situations, Dershowitz wrote.
“Circumstantial evidence itself can, of course, be based on true or false recollections, but sometimes there is objective circumstantial evidence, such as the entries in Brett Kavanaugh’s yearbook,” Dershowitz wrote. “But inevitably, such evidence is subject to multiple interpretations.”