meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
This American Life

800: Jane Doe

This American Life

This American Life

Society & Culture, News, Politics, Arts

4.688.8K Ratings

🗓️ 28 May 2023

⏱️ 74 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Five years after the #MeToo explosion, what’s happened in the lives of the women who stepped forward and went public with their stories? We tell the story of a teenager who spoke out against one of the most powerful people in her state, and what happened next.

  • Prologue: Some powerful and well known men lost their jobs after #MeToo. But what about the women at the center of all this who’ve been way less visible after they told what happened to them? We hear about big and small ways the aftermath of coming forward continues to pop up in their daily lives. (10 minutes)
  • Act One: Back in 2021, a 19-year-old intern at the Idaho state legislature reported that a state Representative named Aaron von Ehlinger raped her. She went by the name Jane Doe. There was a public ethics hearing and Ehlinger resigned. State legislators talked about how proud they were of their ability to do the right thing so quickly. But the story that the public knows is very different from what actually happened to Jane. She talks about it in-depth for the first time. (25 minutes)
  • Act Two: Jane Doe walks into a public ethics hearing at the Idaho state capitol and navigates the aftermath. (23 minutes)
  • Act Three: Jane Doe sent some questions for us to ask Chanel Miller. For years, Chanel was known as Emily Doe. She wrote a victim impact statement that millions of people read. (A swimmer at Stanford University named Brock Turner sexually assaulted her while she was unconscious.) She talks about how she decided to come out with her real name and who Emily Doe is to her now. (9 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show.

0:05.4

If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org.

0:12.0

Some things in your life you decide you're never going to talk about.

0:15.3

For jewels, there was what a youth pastor did to her, long ago when she was a teenager

0:19.7

in Texas.

0:20.7

Just tried to put it aside, tried to move on.

0:25.2

Then, me too happened, with so many more women reporting men who disalted or harassed

0:30.3

them.

0:31.3

And Matt Lauer had been on the front cover of the USA today, and I thought, oh my goodness,

0:39.2

it inspired me so much that that very day I wrote to my abuser who was now a pastor at

0:48.6

a megachurch.

0:49.6

You never responded.

0:51.6

So she wrote a blog post about it, thinking, you know, maybe a hundred people would see

0:54.9

it.

0:55.9

But that was not the moment we were in.

0:57.5

It became international news.

0:59.6

And because of me too, there were consequences that would have been unimaginable just a year

1:03.8

before.

1:04.8

The former youth pastor resigned from his job at the megachurch.

1:07.6

They changed her jewels too.

1:10.2

All of a sudden lots of women were calling her for advice.

1:12.2

And I'd handle what they were going through.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from This American Life, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of This American Life and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.