The reports of sexual aggression and violence against women that have come to light since the Harvey Weinstein story first broke are an appalling and depressing confirmation of what most women already knew. As we have watched men tumble from previously unassailable heights of power, the current moment has been celebrated as the dawn of a new day for women.



No longer will men get away with committing rape and molesting children; no longer will bosses be allowed to mistake their female employees for concubines; no longer will men be able to pressure women into having sex with threats of personal and professional retaliation; no longer will the women who speak out be disbelieved, mocked, isolated and silenced. And each new disclosure, each new scandal seems to refine and prolong the lesson that men, like it or not, are learning.



Yet amid all the celebration that has accompanied this welcome cultural shift, some of us have felt a vague sense that something is still missing, that something has been left undone. It’s a little like the unease we may feel when we are enjoying a party, and a fleeting memory of some ongoing problem at home suddenly casts a shadow on our pleasure and our fun.

In case we’d managed to forget what that problem is, we were reminded last week when Donald Trump defended Alabama Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore, whom nine women have accused of inappropriate behavior – including two allegations of assault. Several of them were young teenagers at the time.

Q&A Who are the 20 women accusing Donald Trump of assault and harassment? Show Hide Jessica Leeds Ivana Trump Jill Harth Kristen Anderson Lisa Boyne Cathy Heller Temple Taggart Mariah Billado Karena Virginia Bridget Sullivan Tasha Dixon Melinda McGillivray Jennifer Murphy Rachel Crooks Natasha Stoynoff Ninni Laaksonen Jessica Drake Samantha Holvey Summer Zervos Cassandra Searles Read the full details of the 20 accusations here

In an interview with NBC, Leigh Corfman spoke, with remarkable bravery and persuasiveness, about her meeting with Moore.



In 1979 Moore was 32, Corfman was 14. After setting up a meeting in his home, Moore, according to Corfman, “proceeded to seduce me” on his living room floor. Other women have described encountering Moore when he trawled the mall in Gadsden, Alabama, where his reputation for accosting young girls was so widely known that they learned to avoid making eye contact with him, and to “scooch over to the other side of the mall” when they saw him approaching.

One can all too readily imagine what might happen to a black teenager accused of making unwanted sexual advances to more than half a dozen girls, and of raping at least one. But Moore has enjoyed a more pleasant fate; he was chief justice of the Alabama supreme court.



Even Republican leader Mitch McConnell has called the charges against Moore “credible”, but Donald Trump – who had previously avoided the subject of Moore’s guilt – spoke out in his defense.



“He denied it,” insisted Trump, who has repeatedly demonstrated his belief that to deny is to disprove. Even as he claimed to be “very happy” that women are confronting abusive men, he suggested that whether or not the allegations against Roy Moore are true is less important than the fact that Trump needs his vote to pass the tax reform bill.



Trump has accused Moore’s opponent, Democratic candidate Doug Jones, of being soft on crime, even though it has been pointed out that Roy Moore may have committed a crime.

But why should we be surprised? Trump can’t deny what he was caught saying to Billy Bush, on tape, during the 2016 presidential campaign.



It’s old news, I realize, but it’s worth repeating to remind us that our country is being led by a man who boasted about doing the exact same things that have now caused so many men to lose their reputations, their families and their careers.



“I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything,” he said.



Sadly, we’re no longer even mildly surprised by Trump’s disingenuousness, by his readiness to support a man who may have assaulted a child and to condemn Democratic senator Al Franken of Minnesota for kissing a grown woman who didn’t want to be kissed and inappropriately touching her during a photo shoot.

What makes it harder to be clear about this is the fact that the American public also appears to have lost the power (which our president so clearly lacks) to make simple distinctions – for example, between a crime and an instance of bad behavior.



One reason to have a legal system is that it enables our society to agree on which crimes are worse than others. Murder is worse than shoplifting, arson more serious than driving with a busted tail light. Do we really think that causing a woman terror, injury and pain is the same as making her feel uncomfortable and disrespected?

Both are wrong, but still, they are not the same. Perhaps the problem is partly one of language. “Sexual misconduct” has become the vague and overly capacious phrase used to describe everything from rape to locking women in a room and making them watch a man masturbate to kissing an unwilling woman.



The sexual misconduct allegations against Donald Trump – the full list Read more

In any case, the legal system no longer seems to matter, since these wrongdoers are being tried solely in the court of the media and public opinion. A friend compared the current climate to the Cultural Revolution in China, when there was no such thing as being innocent until proven guilty.



We’re heartened by the examples of men who have oppressed women and are finally being caught. And yet our satisfaction at seeing justice done appears to be compromising our ability to think logically and clearly.



Shouldn’t it matter that the boy whom Kevin Spacey was accused of groping was the same age as the girl whom Roy Moore has been accused of assaulting? Spacey was not only shamed and fired, but more or less erased from the public and professional sphere. But Moore remains quite visible as he campaigns for re-election.

Even as we celebrate the fact that victims of sexual assault are no longer routinely suspected of lying, the fact remains that Donald Trump has been accused of sexual improprieties by more than a dozen women.



During the presidential campaign, Trump called all these women “liars”, and though some of these women have legal representation, his insulting dismissal of them remains largely unchallenged.



Meanwhile, we can only hope that the people of Alabama do the right thing and refuse to elect Roy Moore to Congress. If not, we may conclude that we women have been breaking out the champagne just a little too early.

Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center