The Women Behind the Whisper Network That Brought Down Eric Swalwell

The recent backlash to the feminist gains of the past several decades has been brutal. Roe fell. In the Trump administration, it almost seems as though, for cabinet members, sexual assault allegations are a badge of honor, rather than something to be soberly investigated. In part because of pressure from the president and his cronies, corporations are now trying to erase women’s achievements, rather than tout them.

Though I have been lamenting this state of affairs, this month the lawless nihilism of the anti-feminist backlash is looking less appealing, with real consequences for Representative Eric Swalwell of California and Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas, who have both been credibly accused of sexual misconduct.

Swalwell, a Democrat, suspended his run for governor of California and said he would resign from Congress on Monday. Swalwell’s resignation came days after CNN spoke to a former staffer who said that he raped her when she was intoxicated and “left her bruised and bleeding,” an accusation that the congressman denied. Other women have come forward to report other kinds of sexual misconduct, like unsolicited photos of Swalwell’s genitals and unwanted kissing and touching. On Tuesday, a second woman said that Swalwell raped her. She also accused him of drugging her.

Gonzales, a Republican from south-central Texas, has been accused of coercing a staffer, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, into a sexual relationship; that staffer died by suicide in 2025. Gonzales also said he would resign from Congress on Monday.

I don’t think either Swalwell or Gonzales would have quit Congress without the whisper network of online feminists. My framing on all of this has shifted a bit lately. Instead of seeing the strong anti-feminist backlash of the past few years as a sign of weakness in the movement, I now see it as a mark of strength. If women had not been accruing real social and political power in the 2010s, there would have been no need to forcefully put us down.

It has become fashionable to argue, as Helen Lewis did in The Atlantic last month, that the feminism of the 2000s was a failure. Lewis lumps together all of the women’s websites of the early 21st century, “girlboss” culture, fat positivity and “the great awokening” to claim that “Millennial feminism failed because it was suffocating, immiserating and often at odds with observable facts about human nature.”

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Jessica Grose is an Opinion writer for The Times, covering family, religion, education, culture and the way we live now.

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