Believe First: Why White Women Struggle to Trust Lived Experience

Lately, I’ve been thinking about all the times I’ve said "Are you sure?" when someone I love shared something hard. Not to be mean. Not to gaslight. Just to… make sense of it. Verify it. Hold on to a version of reality I felt safer with.

In episode 34 of White Women Wake Up, Karen and I dive deep into this reflex—the instinct to doubt someone’s story, even when we care. Especially when we care. Whether it’s a friend sharing trauma, a student turning in a late assignment, or a colleague describing workplace bias, we often default to skepticism. We call it "playing devil's advocate" or "just being objective." But what if it’s something else entirely? What if it’s about power? About proximity? About who gets to be seen as credible in the first place?

Proximity, Power, and the "Plausible Story"

Most of us were taught to trust experts: doctors, pastors, scientists. We were taught to value logic over emotion. But we were also taught—subtly, constantly—that some people’s stories just make more sense. Because they sound like ours. Because they come from someone who "seems" reliable. Because they don’t make us question what we’ve always believed.

This is what philosopher Miranda Fricker calls epistemic injustice: when someone is discredited not because of what they said, but because of who they are. Fricker names two forms: testimonial injustice (when someone’s word is doubted based on identity) and hermeneutical injustice (when people lack the cultural legitimacy to even explain their experience) [1].

In plain terms? A Black teen reporting police violence is met with suspicion. A trans woman describing healthcare discrimination is told she’s exaggerating. A fat woman in pain is assumed to be lazy, not ill. Meanwhile, when someone whose story fits societal expectations shares the same thing, they are often met with less resistance and more immediate credibility. This contrast highlights the ways our systems and cultural conditioning shape who is instinctively trusted—and who is not.

The Biases Behind the "Hmm..."

In the episode, we explored four unconscious biases that shape who we believe—especially when the story makes us uncomfortable:

Proximity Bias: We’re more likely to believe people who feel familiar. When someone’s story is shaped by race, class, gender, or experience outside our own, our trust can falter—even without intent. Research shows that people unconsciously rate information from those who share their identity as more credible [2].

Authority Bias: We’ve been trained to defer to institutions—schools, churches, medical systems. When someone outside those systems speaks up (especially if they’re young, disabled, or from a marginalized group), we seek validation from the "authorities," not from the individual [3].

Comfort Bias: We filter stories through what we want to be true. If believing a story means we have to challenge our worldview, acknowledge past harm, or feel complicit, we’re likely to reject it subconsciously. This is especially evident in white communities reacting to stories of systemic racism or privilege [4].

Social Endorsement Bias: We follow the crowd. If our community, peer group, or media dismisses someone’s story, we often mirror that skepticism—even if something inside us feels off. Social psychology research has repeatedly shown how group consensus overrides personal judgment [5].

These biases act like fast-acting filters. They save cognitive energy. But they also distort who we listen to and why.

A 2023 Harvard Business Review article found that women of color are interrupted and questioned more often than white women in meetings, leading to burnout and disengagement [6]. In healthcare, Black women in the U.S. are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women—a disparity driven largely by providers not believing their pain [7].

The Harm of Not Believing

I shared how, for months, I minimized a friend’s experience—not because I didn’t care, but because I let her past relationships and decisions cloud my trust. I hesitated to fully validate her pain, unsure if it fit the pattern I expected. I’m certain I’m not alone in this. Many of us have done the same, letting old judgments override our ability to show up. It doesn’t feel like cruelty—it feels like doubt. But the result is the same: isolation, silencing, shame.

When we don’t believe someone’s story, we rob them of dignity. We force them to prove their pain. And we communicate, even if unintentionally, that our comfort matters more than their truth.

This isn’t just personal. It’s systemic. Courts have long histories of disbelieving survivors of sexual violence. In fact, as recently as 2020, more than 60% of sexual assault cases in the U.S. were dismissed without charges, many due to credibility assessments rather than lack of evidence [8]. Meanwhile, schools disproportionately discipline Black students based on subjective interpretations of "disrespect" or "attitude" [9].

But beyond disbelief, many of our institutions go a step further: they subtly suggest that people fabricate these stories to harm others. This gaslighting shows up in media narratives that focus on the rare false accusation rather than the overwhelming prevalence of real harm. Survivors—particularly women—are often told they are overreacting, misremembering, or worse, trying to ruin someone’s life. These narratives not only silence the storyteller, but condition the rest of us to doubt them in advance. The result? A culture that protects reputation over truth, and teaches us to fear being duped more than we fear doing harm.

Even within families, children are often taught to defer to adults or authorities, overriding their own instincts. When we prioritize obedience over validation, we teach the next generation to mistrust their inner voice.

From Doubt to Curiosity: A Different Way

Belief is a practice. It doesn’t mean abandoning discernment. It means pausing before interrogating. It means noticing when our reflex is to question, and choosing instead to stay present.

When someone shares something hard, we can respond with:

"Thank you for trusting me."

"I believe you."

"That sounds really hard. How can I support you?"

And when our bias bubbles up? We can journal it. Trace it. Ask where it came from. Was it something we were taught? Something we heard? Something we fear?

Trust is a muscle. The more we use it, the stronger it gets—especially when the story being shared is unfamiliar or inconvenient. Believing someone doesn’t mean abandoning discernment; it means resisting the urge to prioritize our comfort over someone else’s truth.

Next Steps: Practice, Not Perfection

- Keep a Bias Journal: For one week, jot down each moment you instinctively questioned

someone’s story. Reflect on the trigger.

- Change Your Script: Replace "Are you sure?" with "I hear you."

- Host a Listening Circle: Create space for uninterrupted storytelling, ending with affirmation

instead of advice.

- Learn About Epistemic Injustice: Start with Miranda Fricker’s work or accessible

explainers like this one.

- Interrupt Groupthink: When someone says, "That doesn’t sound right," gently ask, "What

makes it hard to believe?"

Belief is not endorsement. It’s not agreement. It’s a presence grounded in humility—a willingness to trust even when the story challenges what we’ve known. It’s making space for someone’s reality without needing to reshape it in our own image.

And for white women, it’s a form of repair. Repairing harm done when our doubt was used to silence—survivors, Black women, trans voices, disabled bodies. We inherited these habits. But we don’t have to keep them.

Stay curious, be open, and keep waking up.

-Jonelle

References

1. Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford University Press. 

2. Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J. C., Glick, P., & Xu, J. (2002). "A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

3. Greenhalgh, T., et al. (2019). "Why Do We Always End Up Trusting the Doctor?" BMJ.

4. DiAngelo, R. (2018). White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.

5. Asch, S. E. (1955). "Opinions and Social Pressure." Scientific American.

6. Harvard Business Review. (2023). "When You Don’t Believe Your Colleague."

7. CDC. (2022). "Racial and Ethnic Disparities Continue in Pregnancy-Related Deaths."

8. Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2020). "Criminal Victimization and Reporting Rates."

9. ACLU. (2020). "School-to-Prison Pipeline."