The Yale Law Journal

Julia Simon-Kerr

Note

Unchaste and Incredible: The Use of Gendered Conceptions of Honor in Impeachment

Julia Simon-Kerr

117 Yale L.J. 1854 (2008).

This Note demonstrates that the American rules for impeaching witnesses developed against a cultural background that equated a woman’s “honor,” and thus her credibility, with her sexual virtue. The idea that a woman’s chastity informs her credibility did not originate in …