E. Jean Carroll took on former President Donald Trump and won, and now she wants other women to know they have the strength to do the same.
Speaking to attendees at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women dinner on Tuesday in New York, Carroll, who won $83.3 million in defamation settlements against Trump in Januarysuggests that the outcome of the upcoming presidential election may depend on women’s votes.
“Women really can win this election,” she told Fortune’s Emma Hinchliffe. “Black women, especially in the 2020 election, have stepped up. And now I think mothers and suburban women should get involved in this election.”
Carroll, a journalist and author, sued Trump for defamation after he called her a liar in 2019 when she publicly accused him of sexually assaulting her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in 1996. The jury found that Trump’s statements significantly damaged Carroll’s reputation. This was the second time Carroll defeated the former president in the courtroom. The previous May, a separate jury found Trump not responsible for rape but guilty of sexually assaulting Carroll and then defaming her by claiming she made up the story. The verdict saw Carroll awarded $5 million, bringing the total amount Trump owed her to $88.3 million.
Motivated by these victories, Carroll, who was joined on stage by attorney Roberta Kaplan, told the audience that she felt “very, very positive” about the power of women to bring justice. social change, despite significant obstacles to women’s rights, including policy overturning Roe v. Wade and recently overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction by New York’s highest court.
“I don’t think we’ll be stopped, I really don’t,” Carroll said. “We must work very hard to help our sisters in the South, reclaim the rights to their own bodies.”
Carroll has yet to receive money from Trump, but that hasn’t stopped her from making big plans for how to spend it. “I would dedicate it to everything that Donald Trump hates,” she said. “He stacked the Supreme Court with conservative justices who strip women of their rights over their own bodies. I will order as much as I can [in]to take back women’s rights over our bodies. I will dedicate it to making sure women become lawyers, especially mothers who want to receive some scholarship support…Since he doesn’t have a dog, I want to donate some to the ASPCA.”
When asked how she copes with being the target of online criticism among Trump supporters, Carroll said her experience is representative of what many women face. on social networks. “Every woman in this room has someone saying terrible things [about them] ABOVE XABOVE Instagram. We all realize, ‘you’re ugly, you’re old, you’re shrunken, you don’t deserve this, you’re pathetic, you’re disgusting.’ We are all getting it. There’s nothing unusual about me.”
However, the conclusions of her trials made abuse easier. And Carroll said she felt moved to be in the same room with so many influential women.
“A serious woman is an extremely powerful entity,” she warns. “The point is never to despair – never to despair. Let’s always keep a positive attitude so we can do what we have to do.”
