This Matters

Lunch roils in my stomach as I write, having just heard the Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to move a decision on Brett Kavanaughto the full Senate.  Having listened to testimony on and off all day yesterday, from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's emotional recollection of (alleged) physical, sexual assault by Brett Kavanaugh when she was fifteen, to Judge Kavanaugh's fiery rebuttal and denial, my emotions rise and fall like a tidal wave and my mind hovers in perpetual disbelief.

I don't know what happened at that house party in the 1980's, though I know Dr. Ford has far more to lose - and nothing to gain - by giving her testimony.  Judge Kavanaugh obviously feels that the best move is an offensive against the Democrats, against the media, against Dr. Ford.  He teared up yesterday over the pain this has caused his family, the damage that it's done to his reputation, the potential harm to his chances for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the United States.

His outrage and bluster, as well as Senator Lindsay Graham's impassioned, angry speech, remind me of something: the rape trial of Brock Allen Turner, a Stanford student-athlete who was convicted of felony sexual assault. During the trial, witnesses for the defense stood up for Turner, admiring of his accomplishments and athletic prowess and bemoaning the fact that because of this one act, his name and his future would be ruined.  Because Turner was a Stanford student and a good swimmer, because Brett Kavanaugh went to Georgetown Prep, Yale undergrad and Yale Law school, do they get a free pass?  I don't think so, but some do.

Weighing a blow to the reputation against a blow to the psyche and body, thinking not of the accused but of the victim of violent sexual assault, whose future is appropriated by the biological response to trauma, I wonder why the rights of the victim seem to matter so little.  In a powerful letter written by the victim of the Stanford rape to her assailant, she said, "And then, at the bottom of the article, after I learned about the graphic details of my own sexual assault, the article listed his swimming times. 'She was found breathing, unresponsive with her underwear six inches away from her bare stomach curled in fetal position. By the way, he’s really good at swimming'. Throw in my mile time if that’s what we’re doing. I’m good at cooking, put that in there, I think the end is where you list your extracurriculars to cancel out all the sickening things that’ve happened."  (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katiejmbaker/heres-the-powerful-letter-the-stanford-victim-read-to-her-ra)

Testimony by Dr. Ford contains echoes of those harrowing words. "I don't know you but you have been inside me," reads the letter. "When he put his hand over my mouth I couldn't breathe, and I thought Brett Kavanaugh might accidentally kill me," said Dr. Ford.  PTSD, chronic anxiety, phobias, damage to personal relationships, lives forever harmed. Do they not count because the women weren't Division 1 athletes or high court judges?  

I went to Harvard, and I did meet men there who felt entitled - to good grades, the best housing, Finals' club parties, a woman's body. Their entitlement came from wealth, from upbringing, from society's lack of resolve in taking them to task for aggression.  I also met men who would never think of violating the body of another human being. One of my closest male friends from Harvard posted on Facebook earlier this week, noting that his mother told him they (his parents) would support him in anything, get him through any failure, prop him up after any mistake, except if he committed a rape. Then he was on his own.

In  a close reading of recent events it seems that a woman's life is not valued as highly as a man's, with the possible exception of the #MeToo movement in Hollywood, though I suspect that many men were let go because they became financial (not moral) liabilities.  Some Americans believe that men can't help it, that this happens all the time and must be accepted as reality. Certainly it shouldn't interfere with big, important doings of rich, connected, well-educated males. After all, we can't see the scars on the women, and they seem to have gotten on with their lives, right?

I call BS on the assumption that men "can't help it." I call BS on the idea that a claim of sexual assault hurts the man named more than the actual assault hurts the female (or male) victim of violence. My husband has never - will never - lay claim to a woman's body in this way, and if my sons ever do, I will support their conviction and their sentencing. Rob and I both teach them that men can help it, must help it, must recognize they have no right to a woman's body no matter what she is wearing, where she goes, what she drinks. If they violate a woman, a human being with family and prospects and hopes and dreams, they must accept the penalty and pay the price. If Brett Kavanaugh did commit this act he should never be confirmed to the Supreme Court, and God help us if we put him there.