The Daughter Defense, the act of a man invoking one’s daughter(s) when defending themselves of gender/sexual misconduct allegations (Demopoulous, 2021; Bennett, 2020; Hesse, 2018, Schultz, 2021), is frequently used by powerful men (i.e. Brett Kavanaugh, Andrew Cuomo) accused of sexual misconduct. However, little is known about whether the Daughter Defense is an effective strategy against these accusations I investigated whether the Daughter Defense affected perceptions of men accused of sexual harassment in one study (N = 295). Participants varying in conservatism read two vignettes about two men (either Republican or Democrat politicians) accused of sexually harassing a female employee. One vignette had the accused perpetrator use the Daughter Defense and the other did not. Participants reported their perceptions of the alleged perpetrator and their perceptions of the defense used. As hypothesized, as conservatism increased, perceptions of the alleged perpetrator became more positive, regardless of the alleged perpetrator’s political affiliation or response type. However, contrary to hypotheses, but consistent with prior research (Lizzio-Wilson et al., 2022), the Daughter Defense improved perceptions of the alleged perpetrator and the alleged perpetrator’s response relative to the control defense. Discussion surrounds implications for understanding a common, and effective, rhetorical strategy used by alleged perpetrators to cast doubt on alleged victim’s allegations.