“Trauma as a shield”: Cuomo’s apology, defense criticized

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NEW YORK He said his actions were misinterpreted, his words misunderstood. He said it was cultural: he kisses, he kisses, he says Ciao, bella. He said it was generational: Sometimes he falls in love or in love or tells bad jokes.

But of all of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s responses to the investigation’s findings that he sexually harassed 11 women, one that has bothered many women the most, especially survivors of sexual assault and their advocates. , was his use of a sexual assault on a family member to explain his own behavior with an accuser. .

We will not be moved by Governor Cuomo’s attempts to use the stories of survivors, including those he harassed, as a shield for his own misconduct and abuse of power while claiming the harassment was a misunderstanding, said an open letter to be released Thursday by the National Womens Law Center and several women’s and survivor groups, demanding the resignation or removal of Democratic governors.

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Tarana Burke, the survivor and advocate who gave the #MeToo movement its name, wrote in an email to The Associated Press that abusers, no matter what their personal stories, do not focus on cases of abuse .

In these moments, the survivor stories are the ones that should be elevated, Burke said. There are 11 women, whose stories have been corroborated, who were harassed by the governor. His family history does not exonerate him, and he cannot use someone else’s trauma as his own shield.

The allegations investigators said they corroborated ranged from inappropriate comments to forced kissing and trial and error.

In a statement recorded Tuesday, Cuomo denied ever touching anyone inappropriately, but apologized to two accusers, including former staff member Charlotte Bennett. He said he asked Bennett about his love life in a misunderstood attempt to help him cope with the trauma of a past sexual assault. He spoke of a family member, roughly the same age, who was sexually assaulted in high school.

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I thought I could help him through a difficult time, the governor said of Bennett.

Emily Martin, vice president of education and workplace justice at the NWLC, said Cuomo was suggesting he was a hero for survivors of sexual assault, which is a particularly disturbing decision given all of the above. what this report found.

In some ways, it reminds me of the father of daughters comments we hear from so many men in power, Martin said, that we should take them at their word that they care about these issues based on their own. personal family relationships.

Bennett herself called Cuomo’s apology meaningless.

If he was sorry, he would withdraw. This is how accountability works, she told the AP immediately after the remarks.

Elaborating on ABC’s Good Morning America Wednesday, Bennett said: He insinuated that survivors of trauma and sexual assault cannot tell the difference between mentorship and leadership and sexual harassment itself, which is not just insulting to me but to all the survivors who listened to it yesterday.

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Marissa Hoechstetter was one of those survivors. She said she was saddened by Cuomo’s reference to assaulting his family because I don’t want to diminish those experiences. But, the New York reform advocate added, two things may be true. You may have someone in their family who suffered sexual harm, and they could have caused that harm as well.

You feel so drained when you see the trauma of people trotting around trying to explain another person’s legitimate voice, Hoechstetter said.

Deborah Tuerkheimer, a law professor at Northwestern University specializing in sexual misconduct, saw Cuomos’ remarks as part of a larger strategy to discredit his accusers and save his political career.

We often rely on a set of long-held misconceptions about abusers as monsters without any redemptive quality, “Tuerkheimer said. Whenever an accused looks different from this imaginary monster, they were more. inclined to doubt the allegations against him. And the accused men often strategically tap into this cultural bias by emphasizing, as proof of innocence, their best qualities, including, perhaps, empathy for victims of sexual assault.

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For Indira Henard, director of the DC Rape Crisis Center, the case against Cuomos’ statement was simple: you can’t support survivors in one sentence and discredit them in another.

If you stand up and believe in the survivors, then you believe in the survivors, ”said Henard. You cannot take their story apart.

Many also questioned the effectiveness of other parts of Cuomo’s taped statement, which was accompanied by a slideshow of him hugging and kissing people in a benign setting.

I kiss people on the forehead, he says. I kiss people on the cheek. I kiss people on the hand. I embrace people. I say occasionally, Ciao, bella. “

Evan Nierman, CEO and chairman of Red Banyan, a crisis public relations firm based in Florida and Washington, DC, called it bold Cuomo’s claim that this is some kind of hug in series and therefore none of the claims could be true because he hugs and kisses everyone.

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There is a big difference between proper physical contact and the types of allegations that have been made against the governor, “said Nierman,” and so I don’t think most people are going to confuse the two.

Deborah Tannen, a linguistics professor at Georgetown University who studies intercultural communication, noted Cuomo’s reference to his heritage. She acknowledged that Italian Americans tend to have casual contacts in conversation, but this doesn’t affect sexual venues.

It’s a friendly kiss, she said. So I don’t think that’s really relevant for the more serious allegations either.

From crisis communication experts to survivors, many have agreed that Cuomo’s political future looks beyond salvation. For New York and its accusers to move forward, they said, the governor must be held accountable.

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Put simply, he must resign, Henard said, adding that if he doesn’t, he should be removed from office. “There is no going back to that.

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Follow Noveck on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JocelynNoveckAP and Sen at https://twitter.com/mallikavsen.

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