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Profiles in courage, cowardice and cluelessness: One woman’s reaction to watching the Ford hearing

At first, Dr. Ford seemed a familiar stranger, someone I might have taken classes with or lived near, someone I’d seen but not known—until she spoke, that is, and I knew her, because she was painting me a portrait of myself.

Courage

I was 20 years old when Anita Hill was grilled about pubic hair and porn movies by a line of disbelieving white men, and I was, at the time, a repressed agnostic on the subject of the sexual demeaning of women. Professor Hill might as well have been speaking about her moon landing for all I identified with her experiences. 1992 was not the year of this woman, perhaps because 1990 was the year of this woman’s attempted rape, and that event had gone way underground in my psyche.

But 2018 is looking like it just might be my year.

Dr. Ford is either the greatest actress since Meryl Streep or the most compelling witness I have ever seen. Listening to her testimony was an out-of-body experience for me, a 46-year-old mother of three, streaming things live from the comfort of my living room couch while my sick children watched something else on a couch upstairs. At first, Dr. Ford seemed a familiar stranger, someone I might have taken classes with or lived near, someone I’d seen but not known—until she spoke, that is, and I knew her, because she was painting me a portrait of myself. She was me, if only I had the guts, if only courage could surmount shame. It was time out of time: 2018 meets 1990 meets 1983. I heard myself finishing her sentences, felt tears welling up at the words that also made her cry.

Christine Blasey Ford is sworn in to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee Sept. 27 in Washington, D.C. Her attorneys Debra Katz and Michael Bromwich look on. Photo: AP/Andrew Harnik

Should Larry, whose last name I forget, who, in September 1990, was the 6-foot-6 college upperclassman basketball player who attempted to rape me, ever come up for a prominent public position, I would be able to offer similar testimony to Dr. Ford’s. I’d be able to relate crystal clear memories—a dark, narrow stairwell; loud music; a bed positioned perpendicularly to the door; vomit all over my shoes—memories I’ve rarely told anyone and, until today, it didn’t really sink in that I might be able to offload the stink of Larry. I have always assumed that his sins were mine. More importantly, I have always assumed that the Brett Kavanaughs I’ve known were correct: My bad experience would remain in the “what happens at Sigma Nu, stays at Sigma Nu” category of events.

But no! In 2018, a 1983 girl/2018 woman took her story out of the boy’s bedroom and into the open! More incredible, no one interrupted her! No one walked out of the chamber! As she put together her story out loud, no one muttered, “Nothing happened” and walked away, as though not even she did not even merit the courtesy of finishing her sentence. That is what Larry did to me, when I naively returned to the scene of my humiliation the following night to try to figure things out. Ms. Ford’s testimony transformed her memories into something other than her own cross to bear. Now mine feel as though they are not mine alone to bear, either.

Dr. Ford did something even more remarkable. She showed compassion for herself as an insecure teenaged girl. When she referenced the “limited coping skills” of 15-year-olds, it touched a nerve for both of us and made us tear up simultaneously. My coping skills were so limited—at 15, at 18, at 22. I nodded when she described long-term effects from what was, after all, in both our cases, just a brief, unsuccessful rape attempt. Anxiety. Relationship challenges. It is, of course, hard to separate out the origins of anxiety and relationship challenges. It is not hard, however, to understand why Dr. Ford insisted on a second front door for her house. It is not hard to understand why the sight of a fraternity house makes me sick to my stomach.

Cowardice

Meanwhile, up on the dais, it’s still 1983, so Republican senators thought it the lesser of two evils to outsource their questions to a female mouthpiece. And such weird questions! So repetitive. It took me a while to figure out what they were all getting at. “Dr. Ford, how did you get here?”

“Uh, in an airplane.”

“Did you or anyone acting on your behalf … ?”

“What do you mean, ‘acting on my behalf?’”

Yeah, what do you mean, Ms. Mitchell, I mean Lindsay I-Only-Speak-To-Men Graham? The rest of the citizenry doesn’t have people “acting on their behalf” (or speaking, for that matter) like you people do.

They had gotten the band together again for an Anita Hill redux, and this time they were less interested in the dirty details than they were obsessed over the idea—made less plausible with every brutally honest answer she offered—that Dr. Ford was brought in by the left as a political stuntwoman. I have no doubt that Democrats manipulated timing and probably did other ugly things to work the hearings to their advantage but, in the end, no one will remember that, or them. What will endure is the image of one woman sacrificing a lot to tell a story that millions and millions of us will never get to tell.

Cluelessness

But let’s talk, loudly and Trumpily, about the important stuff. Let’s listen to Judge Kavanaugh, of course, talking about himself. (As an old narcissistic friend of mine used to say, “Enough about me, what do YOU think of me?”)

“Let’s start with my career,” he said. Apparently, in the law of the Brett Kavanaughs of the world, a fierce educational work ethic followed by a distinguished work life inoculate people from the things they may or may not have done when they were drunk. Also, all his best friends are girls, so, there you go: case closed. (This guy is a JUDGE?)

I’ve always known Brett Kavanaughs. The bright young star of his parents’ dreams, whose golden path begins at an elite, all-boys high school, he works his “tail off” there and learns to drink just as hard. There are (of course!) dozens of nights when he could not say what he did or did not do, but these will be easy to dismiss and move on from because the world revolves around him and for him, and so all the things he doesn’t remember didn’t really happen. (“Nothing happened,” Larry said.)

The difference between him and Christine Ford is self-delusion versus self-awareness. She’d clearly worked through the attack and other issues in therapy. She’d talked them through. She understood the psychology of trauma. She knew, both professional and personally, that memories can be deceptive, and she was careful to distinguish between what she knew to be true and was not sure was true.

In contrast, Kavanaugh offered up puerile defensiveness when asked about his teenaged drinking. “Yes, sure, we drank beer. We liked beer. I still like beer,” as though he was being questioned for his fondness for hot chocolate. (Again, this guy is a JUDGE? Have no drunk-driving cases, alcohol-fueled domestic violence or barroom brawls come before his court?)

But the Brett Kavanaughs I’ve known don’t veer off the career track long enough to take other, messier matters into serious, thoughtful consideration. Hard drinking and frat-boy culture and all the stuff that happens as a result of it? That’s off-limits. That’s not the part of their lives that’s connected to the working memory. You can ask me about my work and I’ll work my tail off to answer your questions, and you will go away educated because I have 15 years of elite education in my superior brain to share with you. But don’t you dare ask me about my nights with my buddies. That’s MY time, and what happens in my time stays in my time.

Some commentator or other said yesterday, “They haven’t fully assessed the anger of the American female.”

No, they have not.

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