Victoria Brownworth Profile picture
Aug 2, 2018 17 tweets 6 min read Read on X
Will no one save me from Franken truthers?

Do any of you think about how it feels to victims of sexual assault to have you running around slandering the woman with the most progressive voting record in the Senate in defense of a man accused by nine women of sexual misonduct?
1/
I don't know what is in the water tonight that put this back on Twitter again. Maybe @SenGillibrand leading a protest against #BrettKavanaugh. Maybe @TinaSmithMN being so obviously more engaged in that MN Senate seat than her predecessor.

But why not just stop it?

2/
I liked Al Franken's books. I never was a fan of his jocular sexism.But he didn't bother me in the Senate because he was a back bencher.

Unlike Kirsten Gillibrand, who spent the last decade being the loudest voice for sexual assault victims in Congress. She made it her focus.
3/
The assault on Gillibrand over Franken resigning is one of the more incomprehensible things I've witnessed as a reporter & it's been a tumultuous three years.

What ARE you thinking?
The conspiracy theories, the misogyny, the vitriol--did you black out during 2015/2016?
4/
The deification of mediocre white men and the slandering of smart, accomplished women is how we got here. And by here I mean where a significant percentage of white Democratic women and men put us with their misogynist votes: in Trump's America.

5/
Perpetuating the false narrative that somehow it was Gillibrand's actions, not Franken's that led to his resignation is preposterous as it is dangerous.

Blaming women for men's sexual misconduct is why victims don't come forward: YOU prevent them, with your victim-blaming.
6/
It's 2018. #MeToo

Men don't--or shouldn't--get a pass for bad actions. If you are smugly saying "it wasn't a big deal"ask yourself who you are willing to accept non-consensual sexual advances from, how many, what context.

Gillibrand has always fought for victims: men, too.

7/
It's painful when men we admire & respect fail us & themselves. I was gobsmacked by #EricSchneiderman. But when that story broke, people--and many women--told me it was another Franken-esque plot to protect Trump. No.

Women were hurt by these men masquerading as feminists.
8/
Tonight I saw women saying they hoped Gillibrand & Smith would lose in November.

Seriously.

This is bat-sh*t lunacy. You want to lose THE most progressive senator AND one of our few women for what now? Your adulation of 90s SNL skits?

We can't afford such petulance.
9/
We are two Senate seats away from Democratic control that was lost in 2014 by more petulance and sulking by white voters. If you actually care about this country you'll get over your pettiness and be grateful we have a senator like Gillibrand who takes risks for eveyone.

10/
#Misogyny is as deeply ingrained in America as racism. It's structural. It's inculcated in each of us from birth by our society and other societies.

Refute it. Stop buying into the narrative that women hurt men & women are the problem when it's men who have all the power.
11/
We didn't lose a seat when Franken resigned. And he chose to resign and when he did so took zero responsibility for why, made no feminist entreaty for men to do better, no teachable moment to give his exit some grace.

Disappointing.

12/
No one is indispensable in Congress.

I see zero hand-wringing over John Conyers' forced resignation and unlike Franken, Conyers was a huge presence over 30yrs. He created the #MedicareForAll plan Bernie Sanders took to the Senate.
Why no similar sense of outrage?
13/
Conyers fought Trump hard. Yet no one invented a conspiracy theory to blame some woman for Pelosi requesting his resignation as Schumer requested Franken's.

I hope it wasn't #racism.
I hope it wasn't #misogyny.

Democrats must address these problems so they don't lose again.
14/
Start thinking more clearly about our objectives on the left and how GOP uses these embarassing lapses against us.

Folks wasted eight months of energy on Franken trutherism instead of standing for Gillibrand and Smith and flipping the Senate.

He's gone.
Time to move on.
15/
#Misogyny is a drug.

It's the worst addiction in America and it kills more people than opioids.

Wean yourselves off of it.

16/
Two days after I wrote this thread there are still white people screaming and cursing in my mentions over it.

Refusing to look at your own biases is how 52% of white women voted Trump while 94% of black women voted Hillary.

Look deeper.
Do better.
The stakes are so high.

17/

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More from @VABVOX

Oct 9, 2018
I don't think men really understand how different it is to be a woman out in the world and how quickly things can turn dangerous.
When I was living in New Orleans, I was walking home from work one night. It was fall--dark early & foggy.
A man came out of the fog toward me.
1/
He said hi, I said hi.
As he started to pass me, he asked me if I had the time.
I looked at my watch, looked up, he had a gun pointed at me.
He hit me so fast I wasn't able to steel myself.
I fell to the ground.
He said, "I could rape you right now, but I don't have time."
2/
He wanted my money.
I had the grocery money for the entire house (I lived with 3 other people) in my purse.
He took it and disappeared into the fog.
The whole thing was maybe ten minutes, start to finish.
I was shaking so hard I could hardly get up.
My head was bleeding.
3/
Read 20 tweets
Oct 4, 2018
The majority of the working class in America is women and POC.
And white men as a group haven't voted majority Democrat since 1964--they stopped after LBJ signed the the #VRA.
Flip the narrative and start listening to the ACTUAL working class--the rest of us.
Stop centering white men for everything.
Stop claiming only white men can save us from the damage white men did to us.
Women are the working class--my investigation here:

damemagazine.com/2018/04/12/wom…
.@matthewstoller is very worried about white men, but it's really women of all races who are facing the worst effects of economic and social stresses.
My investigation here:
damemagazine.com/2018/05/10/why…
Read 5 tweets
Oct 2, 2018
The relentlessness of passing over superb women with strong credentials & election histories in favor of whatever man is a headline at a moment is exhausting.

Two months ago it was Avenatti. Now it's O'Rourke.

Bypassing the majority of Americans--women--is a national disgrace.
O'Rourke is fine. He is not, Harris, Gillibrand or Klobuchar.

▪Gillibrand is Congress' leader on women's rights & sexual assault victims.
▪Harris set NN2018 on fire with her speeches reclaiming identity politics.
▪ Klobuchar highlighted #Kavanaugh's unfitness for SCOTUS.
Americans MUST stop looking past women to find some man, any man to supplant them.

It took THIRTY YEARS of incredibly hard work for @HillaryClinton to get to run for POTUS. The rules for women are so different. No one sees a woman give a single speech and says "president!"
Read 16 tweets
Oct 1, 2018
I lived in NOLA right after college.
I drank most every day, as did everyone I knew.
We were all in the domestic Peace Corps, all in our early 20s, all hardworking activists with stressful work.
We drank too much at Mardi Gras, New Year's.
It's absurd to claim #Kavanaugh didn't.
Those of us who've had alcoholics in our lives--like Klobuchar--tend to be careful about alcohol because we've been damaged by the drunks in our lives. I'm a control freak, so never liked being drunk, but lots of my friends did. What IS true, is most 20somethings drink to excess.
This new tack from the #GOP to dismiss #Kavanaugh's alcoholic drinking--& I am not saying he was/is an alcoholic, but he certainly drank like one--is just wrong. It undermines their own credibility and ignores reality: statistically the vast majority of teens/20s get drunk OFTEN.
Read 6 tweets
Sep 29, 2018
Let's talk about sex, #Kavanaugh & Venn diagram overlap of male entitlement.

I've written a lot about sex in various contexts. In the late 80s/early 90s I also gave safe sex workshops back when folks my age were dying 24/7 from #AIDS. My 1st book was on juvenile prostitution.
1/
Most of us know consensual and non-consensual sex differ. The entirety of #Kavanaugh's defense and his defenders' outrage is predicated on the presumption that no teenaged boy knows what consent is.

THEY. KNOW.

Some, like their adult counterparts, don't care.

This is key.
2/
Since #MeToo we've seen egregious serial rapists like #BillCosby and #HarveyWeinstein exposed & attempts made to prosecute them.

But there are "lesser" sexual assaults we've given a lighter hand to: Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Mark Halperin, Louis CK--too many to list.
3/
Read 28 tweets
Sep 27, 2018
I gotta tell you, folks, I have been so sick for the past 2wks, I have really been scared.

Sept 22 House GOP passed their new cuts to Social Security Medicaid and Medicare out of committee. $1.2T in cuts.

That's the safety net.

I've always hoped I could fall there. No more.
I had to call my bestie today to have her come up and stay with me while The Wife is teaching.

Even with the oxygen, hard to breathe.

I had to cancel interviews for tomorrow, a radio appearance for Friday.

Chronic illness like #cancer is incapacitating at times.
We need to do better for sick and #disabled Americans.

It is so hard to work and be sick.

Never getting better sick.
Read 4 tweets

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