Op-Ed: How can a sexual abuse survivor vote for an accused abuser?

Picture taken from Flickr.

It was the morning Bernie dropped out of the race. I was making breakfast with my sister Sofia in our kitchen. It was like any other boring morning in quarantine. We got up, headed downstairs, ate, and went about our days. 

My sister checked her phone as she waited for her waffles to pop up in the toaster. 

“Bernie dropped out of the race,” she gasped. Guess it wasn’t just another boring day in quarantine after all. 

I immediately picked up my phone and saw the hashtag trending on Twitter, #WowBernie. I pressed on it, and scrolled through the tweets of those reacting to the news. I felt a pit in my stomach.

“What’s the fucking point of democracy when the two people fighting to run your country are both sexual predators,” one Twitter user wrote. 

A story was being shared around on Facebook with the headline, “Bernie fails to sexually harass women to win race.” I sat in my kitchen with my uneaten breakfast in front of me, trying my hardest not to get upset.

I had been hopeful Bernie would win the race this year. But during the first primary when Biden won countless states, anger and confusion started boiling up inside of me. 

My biggest fear was about to come true. Another man accused of sexual abuse could take office yet again. 

I wrote a post on Facebook after checking Twitter, not caring about the comments I would get based on my personal opinion. I knew politics were a touchy subject to many. I acknowledged in the post that I myself was a survivor, asking when America would stop putting these kinds of men into positions of power. My uncle commented, “it looks like you have way too much time on your hands.” I then regretted writing the post, as I could feel myself slightly hyperventilating. My head was spinning. Of course I cared. 

Maybe people only care about politics, and not what kind of people these men are. 

Just this year, I had come to the realization that I had been taken advantage of when I was just a freshman in college. It took years of unresolved trauma, depression, and anxiety to admit it. The man who hurt me was liked by so many people, and there were moments where I wish I could tell everyone who he really was.

Hearing that so many people were still supporting President Trump and Vice President Biden made me feel like no one cared about the victim’s voices, even if their accusations were true or not. Seeing my uncle comment on my Facebook post, but not acknowledge what I went through, made me feel like no one believed me too. 

Recently Tara Reade, a former Senate aide who worked for Joe Biden’s office in 1993, accused Biden of sexually assaulting her. In April of 2018 when the AP News interviewed her, Reade had claimed that Biden had  “rubbed her shoulders and neck” and “played with her hair.” Many accused Reade of simply “gaslighting” the candidate during his race.  

But there are many videos that you can find across the internet of Biden being handsy with young girls and women. One video shows Biden taking the hair of a young girl and putting it behind her back, kissing her cheek. Another video shows Biden attempting to touch a young girl's face, while the girl jerks back from his touch. These videos failed to even be talked about in the news. Biden’s sexual assault allegations from Reade were seemed to be brought up once, then never talked about again. 

“See, he’s just creepy,” I said, as I showed the countless videos of Biden to my mom as we sat in her bedroom that afternoon. She responded, “he’s just an old man. He just doesn’t know.” 

I remember thinking in the back of my head, would the people who supported my abuser defend him too? Are people still not aware of what consent and personal boundaries mean? 

Back when President Trump was running for President, people remember the infamous video of Trump making vulgar comments about women there were taped.

“Grab them by the pussy,” he said, “you can do anything.” 

Trump was making comments about the actress Arianne Zucker to “Access Hollywood” star Billy Bush. 

“I did try and fuck her. She was married,” Trump said. 

According to Business Insider, 25 women have made allegations against Trump to which all allegations have been denied by the President. For some reason the taped comments and the allegations were also thrown under the rug, and Trump was elected as our current President. 

Karigan Wright, a senior at Emerson College, is a sexual assault survivor. I met her during my sophomore year of college, and we bonded over the struggles we had been through. Like me, she was also triggered by the news that the two candidates for President were Biden and Trump. 

“As someone who has been sexually assaulted multiple times, I felt betrayed that my country supported these two men, and failed to see that even if Bernie didn’t have all the same views as them, he has never been accused of assault,” she says. 

Wright says, Sanders was the democratic candidate who could “fix it all.” 

“When these people vote for and support these men, they’re telling me that they don’t believe the accusations or just don’t care, and I can’t help but wonder if that means they wouldn’t believe me or even care about my trauma,” says Wright. 

“I know watching my abuser take an office as prestigious as the President of the United States of America would sicken me, and I cannot even begin to imagine how these victims of Biden and Trump must feel right now,” she says. 

When it comes time to vote in November, the decision that I have to make will be an extremely triggering day, it will also be to many sexual abuse survivors across America. I know it’s my duty as an American citizen to vote, but as a survivor of sexual abuse, it’s also my duty to believe survivors. If I vote for a man who potentially hurt others, it would be like supporting the men who have hurt me in the past.

When it comes to politics, the argument here is a difficult one. I firmly believe that the person you are and the activities you engage in characterize what you believe in. It’s all about integrity as a human being, and politics are a part of the equation.

Are we acknowledging what kind of people these men are when we vote them into office? Or are we just sweeping it under the rug every time like the last? 

When I think about the right man or woman to be voted into office, I think about a leader that will make me feel safe. 

When I look at Biden and Trump, I’m terrified.