For women’s sake, Kavanaugh must be kept off the Supreme Court [Opinion]
I am taller than the average woman, yet smaller than the average man. I strength-train — hard — but could still be subdued by men who don’t. I submit myself to torture by waxing once a month; I’ll bet not one of the men I know does the same. Few women talk about the momentous act of changing their names when they marry — they just do. Women have 50 percent more penetrable openings than men.
These are the kinds of things I’ve been thinking about lately. These thoughts are new to me. I’m used to weariness of the patriarchy simmering within me like a nice pot of soup — never fully boiling over.
But Brett Kavanaugh has changed things.
Caitlin Moran observed that women have been conditioned to be — thin, maternal, self-deprecating, kind — whereas men have been conditioned to do. When the powers that be, like U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell and President Donald Trump, refuse to treat the serious allegations against Kavanaugh seriously, they are telling women that they exist not to do. Instead, they’re saying women exist to to have things done to them — by men.
They’re saying that men shouldn’t suffer for doing things to women, because that’s the natural order of things. Holding someone as privileged as Kavanaugh — as like them as Kavanaugh — accountable for allegedly doing bad things to women would change everything. It should change everything. However, entertaining that possibility of holding young men accountable for assaulting young women is too threatening to their world. That’s why getting to the bottom of who Kavanaugh is — which absolutely informs the decisions he would make as a Supreme Court justice — is not only unimportant to them, but an exercise to be avoided.
The suggestion that Christine Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez, Julie Swetnick, and Kavanaugh’s fourth accuser, should she reveal her identity, would subject themselves and their families to death threats and hate mail, grind their lives to a halt and endure public shaming by the president, senators and congresspeople on a whim is heinous.
The so-called arguments advanced for dismissing Kavanaugh’s accusers are specious at best: Anyone who has ever been a victim of sexual violence — heck, anyone who’s been a high school or college student — can understand why Ford, Ramirez and Swetnick didn’t come forward years ago. When a high school Spanish teacher told me to wear more skirts because he preferred “girly outfits,” I felt… icky. But I didn’t have the experience or maturity to unpack that feeling, or to do anything about it. I just didn’t want to feel icky anymore, so I dismissed the comment. If an inappropriate comment was too much for me to handle at 15, I cannot begin to imagine how I would have reacted to sexual assault. I truly haven’t a clue what my 15 year-old psyche would have done, nor how it would have developed as a result.
Anyone who has read Trump’s tweets, heard any number of senators’ and congressmen’s misogynist comments, or remembers Anita Hill’s reception during her testimony can imagine why publicly accusing Kavanaugh is an exercise in masochism.
I believe Blasey Ford. I find her to be eminently credible.
The lawyer in me certainly found Blasey Ford’s testimony more compelling than Kavanaugh’s. She stuck to the subject at hand — the alleged assault — and never strayed past the boundaries of her memory. Kavanaugh, on the other hand, seemed to yell out his opening statement, exposing both his temper and sheer incredulity that someone of his pedigree — which he spent a good deal of time detailing — should have to abide the day’s proceedings. At the very least, Kavanaugh has demonstrated that he is deeply partisan. The lawyer in me, the woman in me, the American in me, hopes that Kavanaugh’s own words are enough to keep him off the Court. They should be.
Preventing Kavanaugh from being confirmed as a result of Blasey Ford’s testimony would, to me, keep the Supreme Court legitimate. It would be a relief to millions of American women and women around the world. However, much damage has already been done.
I am a former lawyer and former Supreme Court intern. Ever since I started law school, I have paid rapt attention to the court because I understand how critical it is. Each potential justice is vitally important to millions of American lives.
The stakes are even higher with this nomination. How the overwhelmingly male Senate Judiciary Committee addresses the allegations against Kavanaugh sends a powerful message to more than half of all Americans — the woman half.
They could send the message we’ve come to expect: You should just be. We will do. We can’t help it. We won’t change. We don’t have to.
Or they could change everything.
Emily Wolf is a recovering lawyer and emerging writer. She is working on her first novel and lives in Houston with her husband and two young sons.
