When a woman reports sexual assault, her first obstacle is often not the attacker, but the response: skepticism, scrutiny, and a cultural reflex to assume deceit before harm. At every stage—police, courts, media, and even among friends and family—the default posture too often treats women’s accounts as suspect until proven otherwise. This instinct doesn’t simply fail individual survivors; it corrodes public trust, discourages future reporting, and gives predators room to operate.

Decades of research show that false reports of sexual assault are rare—typically 2–8 percent, consistent with false reports for other major crimes. Yet sexual violence remains the one category where the public imagines deception to be widespread. That gap between perception and reality carries real consequences: survivors who anticipate disbelief are far less likely to come forward, and many who do report describe the investigative process itself as retraumatizing, not because of its rigor but because of its hostility and suspicion.

Examples of this dynamic are everywhere. The 2008 case of Marie Adler is among the most devastating. After reporting that she was raped at knifepoint, the young woman—just 18 at the time—was interrogated by detectives who doubted her trauma responses, fixated on minor inconsistencies, and ultimately accused her of lying. Marie was pressured into recanting and even charged with making a false report. Only years later, when detectives in another state caught a serial rapist and uncovered photos of Marie during the assault, was the truth undeniable. She had been telling the truth the entire time. The system’s disbelief not only harmed her; it allowed a violent offender to continue attacking women in multiple states. Marie’s story, later chronicled in the Pulitzer-winning investigation “An Unbelievable Story of Rape,” is a case study in how institutional skepticism can produce catastrophic outcomes.

And the same dynamic becomes even more chilling when scaled up. For years, Jeffrey Epstein’s victims—mostly teenage girls—tried to tell adults what was happening: the abuse, grooming, trafficking, and powerful network that surrounded him. Many reported the abuse to police, teachers, and journalists. Yet again and again, institutions minimized their accounts, questioned their credibility, or treated them as troublesome or untrustworthy. Epstein benefited enormously from that reflexive doubt; every time officials dismissed a girl as “less than reliable,” he gained more time—and more victims. The parallels between the Epstein case and Marie Adler’s ordeal reveal the magnitude of the harm. When institutions label women and girls as unreliable, it doesn’t make the allegations less serious. It makes the perpetrators less accountable.

It is also essential for more men to take a visible stand against disbelief narratives. Most institutions that handle these cases—police departments, newsrooms, legislatures—remain male-dominated, and norms within those spaces shape how allegations are interpreted. When men dismiss or mock women’s accounts, it signals to other men that skepticism is the appropriate response. But when men publicly affirm that victims deserve to be taken seriously, it reshapes expectations. Studies on bystander intervention and gender-based violence prevention show that men who model belief and respect help shift cultural norms, increase reporting, and reduce the social cost for survivors who come forward. Believing women is not just women’s work; it is a responsibility for everyone, especially men who hold social or institutional power.

So how do we, as a society, avoid repeating these failures?

First, we must stop treating the seriousness of a claim as evidence of its implausibility. Trauma rarely produces neat timelines or perfect narratives. Victims may wait to report out of fear or shock. Their memories may be fragmented. They may seem calm or detached. None of these are signs of deceit; they are normal features of trauma psychology. Yet these are precisely the factors that often trigger skepticism.

Second, police and media need to shift their starting assumptions. It is appropriate for journalists to use cautionary language and for investigators to gather evidence without preconceived conclusions. But too often, law enforcement emphasizes discrepancies rather than context, and media headlines amplify speculation before facts have been assessed. When the press or police float theories of hoaxes prematurely, they don’t just shape perceptions of a single case—they reinforce patterns of disbelief that affect every future victim.

Third, the public plays a critical role. In the age of social media, narratives spread before evidence. People speculate, mock, doubt, and diagnose with an ease that would be unthinkable if the victim were a family member or friend. Every time we accuse a woman of lying without facts, share rumors, or treat allegations as political fodder, we contribute to the same culture that silenced Marie Adler and the Epstein victims. Accountability begins with restraint: withholding judgment until evidence is available, and remembering that statistically, the odds are overwhelming that the woman is telling the truth.

Finally, believing women does not mean abandoning due process—it means beginning from a place of seriousness rather than dismissal. It means asking, “If this is true, what protections does this woman need?” rather than “How could this be false?” It means recognizing that the cost of disbelief is extraordinarily high—not only for the individual survivor but for the next victim who watches society’s reaction and decides whether it is safe to speak.

Marie Adler’s ordeal shows how a single woman can be shattered by disbelief. The Epstein case shows how dozens can be destroyed when disbelief becomes institutional. Both warn us that skepticism reflexively applied to women’s accounts is not a neutral stance; it is an active force that enables abuse.

Believing women is not naïve. It is the rational starting point in a society that understands the toll of disbelief. When women are met with skepticism, danger persists, reporting drops, and accountability erodes. Believing women is not kindness. It is the baseline any society committed to fairness and safety should insist on.