And people around Gillibrand, including some of the big donors who were drawn closer by the Franken episode, have gotten more annoyed.

“If she’s so smart and so calculating, then she knows that this would have a lot of backlash,” said Naomi Aberly, a big Dallas-based donor who’s chair of the Planned Parenthood Federation board of directors. “It’s easiest to have one narrative about each candidate, and this one is the one she’s burdened with, but I don’t think it hinders her overall.”

Ramsey Ellis, a hand and wrist surgeon from outside Chicago, said she sees “internalized misogyny” at work in the people who’ve continued to attack Gillibrand.

That goes for the women, like Buell, too, Ellis said.

“Here’s a Democratic woman who has every reason as a feminist, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t sort of have misogynist programming in your brain that we blame the woman, Senator Gillibrand, for speaking out, even in the face of escalating accusations,” Ellis said. “Just because you’re a woman or a feminist doesn’t mean that you can’t respond to and address cultural issues with a misogynist lens.”