What the Manhattan jury weighing the case against Donald Trump makes of adult film star and director Stormy Daniels’ testimony this week could hinge on societal perception of “lying women,” according to a leading feminist legal theorist and former Manhattan prosecutor.
“All of us are shaped by a culture that casts accusers as unreliable sources of information,” Deborah Tuerkheimer, also a professor at Northwestern Law, told Salon.
Tuerkheimer, the author of the book “CREDIBLE: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers,” said female caricatures such as the gold digger seeking fortune above all, or the scorned woman seeking revenge, or the regretful woman ruing consensual sex, are ubiquitous.
“The ready availability of certain stock representations of lying women makes it easy for us to disbelieve,” Tuerkheimer wrote in her book.
Related
On Thursday, Daniels faced additional cross-examination by Trump’s defense team and a round of questions from prosecutors — with the defense seeking to portray Daniels as having entirely made up the story of the sexual encounter on the basis of her salacious background, her efforts to make money off the tryst and her animus toward Trump.
Trump’s defense lawyer Susan Necheles questioned Daniels at length about alleged discrepancies in various accounts of her 2006 sexual encounter with Trump in his Lake Tahoe hotel suite.
“You made all this up, right?” Necheles asked........