Last month, the night before E. Jean Carroll’s civil sexual assault and defamation trial against former president Donald Trump began, I posited that she just might be the first person to hold Trump legally accountable. And if she secured a verdict in her favor, Carroll — and not any of the prosecutors pursuing criminal cases or investigations of Trump — would be the hero of the hour.
Indeed, in her triumph, Carroll has been heralded for not only for her bravery and persistence, but also praised for her personal evolution from publicly “fabulous” yet silent victim to outspoken advocate for survivors and imperfectly perfect avatar of the post-#MeToo era.
Good men, he suggested, both play hard and respect others’ boundaries. Healthy men, he implied, understand trauma, grief and recovery.
And from her courthouse exits each trial day to her morning show appearances on Wednesday, Carroll has been flanked consistently by another, agreed-upon hero of the story: famed litigator Roberta Kaplan. Yes, Kaplan is the architect of Carroll’s legal strategy writ large. But perhaps more importantly, she is the unseen lawyer questioning Trump during his now-infamous videotaped deposition. Thanks to her focused, restrained questioning, Trump himself furnished the most damning evidence in the case despite never putting on a defense.
Still, without diminishing either woman, there are other, more unexpected heroes without whom Carroll might not have won. They include multiple jurors and another of Carroll’s lawyers. And the biggest surprise of all? Each of them is male.
But maybe this shouldn’t be revelatory. After all, the flip side of the “perfect” rape victim trope at the heart of Team Trump’s appeal to the jury is toxic masculinity, a collection of ideal male traits and behavior that hurt everyone. As author Liz Plank explains in her 2019 book “For the Love of Men,” in a world that exalts toxic masculinity, boys don’t cry or play with dolls; they sublimate their feelings and fears and show dominance through physical feats and personal insults; they prove their value by outearning women and chasing (and/or conquering) sexual prospects. And therefore, exploding the myth of the perfect rape victim necessitates that men also interrogate their expected gender roles.
Her team harnessed the persuasive power of one male lawyer to convince six male jurors that the perfect rape victim doesn’t exist.
And that’s where the men of the Carroll trial come in. To counter Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina’s stereotypically macho version of events, Kaplan shared the spotlight with two former federal prosecutors: Shawn Crowley, an earnest millennial woman who delivered Carroll’s searing opening statement, and, as one friend observed, an identifiably Italian guy’s guy, Michael Ferrara. And it was through Ferrara that the Carroll team explored themes that were not only relatable to the jury’s six men, but resonated with them as well.
Trump’s insistence that the “Access Hollywood” tape was simply “locker room talk” that had been litigated long ago? Nope, Ferrara said. As a self-proclaimed athlete, he had been in his share of locker rooms, Ferrara told the jury on Monday. In other words, I’m one of you, he seemed to assure the men.
And Ferrara continued, not once had he heard anyone talk in a locker room about furniture shopping:
And I’m not trying to be cute here, there is a point. Locker room talk can be crude. OK. I get it. Things you wouldn’t say in front of your mom or your boss. Fine. Whatever. That’s not what this was.
Instead, Ferrara said it was a “confession,” elaborating: Trump was describing a specific incident in which he took a woman shopping and moved on her. Does that sound familiar? Is that not exactly what happened with Ms. Carroll? They were shopping and then he moved on her. Trump never denied this. And then he describes how he just kisses women, he doesn’t wait, grabs them by their genitals. You get it.
Or put another way, Ferrara gave them permission to embrace Carroll’s story without compromising their masculinity. Good men, he suggested, both play hard and respect others’ boundaries. Healthy men, he implied, understand trauma, grief and recovery, and give themselves and others the grace to experience all of them, sometimes all at once. Real men, his very presence conveyed, believe E. Jean Carroll. My friend J is a mother to one son, now 9, for whom she works hard to explode the traps of toxic masculinity. And while her feminism is without question, she invests her energy now in a cultural change campaign aimed at boys and men. She tells me that unless and until we value men for being as loving and respectful as they are strong and aggressive, the gender roles Team Trump both policed and exalted at Carroll’s trial will continue to endanger girls and women. And that understanding is part of what makes Carroll’s trial victory so remarkable. Her team harnessed the persuasive power of one male lawyer to convince six male jurors that the perfect rape victim doesn’t exist, that the rape culture Trump perpetuates is unacceptable, and that E. Jean Carroll was wholly believable. And for that, it’s worth acknowledging that the list of heroes from the E. Jean Carroll trial not only includes many women, but also at least seven men.
Lisa Rubin is MS NOW's senior legal reporter and a former litigator.
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