I don’t know why it should matter
that Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford went to school right down the
road from me. These things happen everywhere; of course they also happen in the
wealthy suburbs of Washington, D.C.
But the more I sit with this, the
more I think: These things happen everywhere. It’s just that in the D.C.
suburbs, we’re not just talking about men who have power because they are white
and have testicles. We’re talking about men—and emerging men—whose power spikes
exponentially with their assets, family legacy, and political influence, none
of which are in short supply along the Beltway.
These things happen everywhere.
But in the D.C. suburbs, they take on an added shade of horror.
My dad was a doctor, but my
family wasn’t rich. There were five of us kids, and we had moved from Georgia
to Maryland with reverse buying power. Our new house was smaller than our old
one, and cost over twice as much. It was a safe neighborhood, but not fancy.
Not like the kids we went to church with, the ones with tennis courts,
gymnasiums, home theaters, countless bathrooms.
We went to public school. Of
course we went to public school. Multiplied by five, tuition at the private
schools in our area—Georgetown Prep, Landon, Bullis, Holton-Arms—would have
approximated my father’s annual take-home pay. Public schools in Montgomery
County were top-notch, anyway. After abysmal Georgia, there was no question
we’d get a proper education.
All around us, though, were
families who wanted to give their kids an extra leg up and could afford to do
so. Our neighbor went to Georgetown Prep. A couple of fellow swim teamers went
to Landon. The kids from church—almost all of them—attended Bullis and
Holton-Arms. I didn’t know much about private school life, other than that it
seemed to involve skirts for girls and lacrosse for boys.
I did know something about the
schools’ reputations, based on what drifted down my own school’s corridors. It
wasn’t just baseless pigeonholing; plenty of Wootton kids ended up at parties
with private schoolers, and could speak to their strengths and weaknesses.
Landon boys were hot. Holy Cross
girls were sluts. And variations on that theme.
I was fifteen, sixteen,
seventeen. I bought the stereotypes. The two Landon boys I swam with were hot, after all. More than likely,
Holy Cross girls were sluts.
* * * * * * *
I wasn’t a slut. I was a good
Mormon girl. I didn’t drink or smoke or have sex. I barely even dated. In my
awkward late adolescence, I still felt nervous around boys I liked.
My friends, to a certain degree,
did drink and smoke and have sex. But we were all wholesome kids. By day, we
baked cookies, went for runs, taught each other guitar licks. By night, we hung
out in the parking lot at Travilah Square, our school’s unofficial meetup spot.
We went dancing. We drove around and stole signs we hoped we’d be allowed to
display in our bedrooms. The parties we went to weren’t especially wild. They
weren’t in the richest neighborhoods, and didn’t involve many private school
kids.
There were plenty of Friday and
Saturday nights when we didn’t go out at all. We would instead hole up at my
friend’s house, the one with the super-cool dad who seemed more like an
extension of our social group than an authority figure.
* * * * * * *
What if the rumor had been that
Georgetown Prep boys were rapists? Could that rumor have even gotten started?
Would I have believed it? Would it have made it up and down the hallways? Or
would it have gotten turned around, twisted, before it could be passed along,
even once?
Georgetown Prep boys can’t be
rapists if Holton girls are asking for it.
* * * * * * *
On Facebook today, I saw this
comment. It was on someone else’s timeline, made by a woman I didn’t know, whom
I’ll call Helen.
“I don’t think she would have
faced the scrutiny had she not waited 36 years to do the accusing. I find it
hard to take an accusation serious when she waited until she could be used by
the Democrats before she said anything. I truly believe that a strong woman
stands up for herself in the moment or not at all.”
Below Helen’s comment, a revolting
amen from another woman I didn’t know:
“Yes. So. Much. Yes.”
My first thought, besides fuck
you, was that more than likely, neither of these women have been assaulted.
Then I thought, statistically speaking, they probably both have. But through
some profound social aberration, they felt empowered enough in the moment to
look past shame and denial, raise their voices, fight back, call attention to
their perpetrator—whom they almost certainly knew—and themselves.
Or maybe Helen and the yes woman
could be strong because they didn’t know their assailants. Maybe their attacks
were the stuff of news stories. They got jumped in a parking garage and
narrowly defended their virtue with car keys to the eyeball. They got cornered
in an alley and screamed and purse-swatted until help arrived.
Then I reread Helen’s comment,
and registered the “not at all” part of the formula. According to Helen, you
can be a strong woman even if you don’t stand up for yourself in the moment, provided
you keep your violator’s secret forevermore. Possibly, she and the yes woman
belong in the latter category.
By Helen’s definition, as I write
these words, I still meet half the criteria of a strong woman.
* * * * * * *
I had a thing happen in high
school. The perpetrator was my friend’s dad. It was a small thing, really. We
were all watching a movie, and he was giving us back rubs, as he sometimes did.
It was a weird time for me; I was in the middle of a ten-day speaking hiatus
prescribed by my speech therapist for vocal cord damage I had sustained from
singing too loud. I hated to be silent, but I was trying to follow her orders,
getting by with notes and gestures as best I could. For urgent communication, I
would whisper.
It was my turn for the back rub. I
didn’t think anything of it.
I can’t remember the name of the
movie we were watching. I think it had to do with a prison system where the
primary method of containment was a collar you wore that had an explosive
receiver on it. When you got too far away from the central transmitter, your
head would be blown off.
Maybe it was that movie; maybe it
was another. I know I watched that movie in that basement at some point during
high school, but it might not have been when I was on my speaking hiatus, and
my friend’s dad was rubbing my back.
I don’t remember the date. I
don’t remember how old I was or what grade I was in.
His hands were on my back, and
then suddenly they weren’t; they had slipped over my shoulders and down into my
shirt. I froze, let his fingers move around. This wasn’t happening. I had
friends on either side of me. It was a giant sectional couch. There must have
been six people in that room, and two of them were his kids. It was completely
dark, and silent save the movie sounds, which may or may not have been head
explosions, but were in any event of no consequence to me because I couldn’t
hear anything.
It might have gone on for thirty
seconds. It might have gone on for a minute. Time was dimensionless for me.
There was only darkness, and silence, and fingers.
I whispered to the room, “I’m
going to get a drink. I’ll be right back.” I ducked out of reach of my masseuse
and up the stairs. In the kitchen, hands shaking, I poured myself a glass of
water.
He showed up in the doorway,
looking concerned. He put on an apologetic smile. “Hey,” he said, “I’m sorry
about the shirt thing. Can we still be friends?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
* * * * * * *
I told one person about my friend’s
dad. Not my parents, not the police, not his wife or his kids—not anyone that
could have done anything about it. I told a different friend of mine, and then
tried to erase it. What happened in the basement felt less like a violation than
an embarrassment. I wanted it to go away. I was a good Mormon girl, and I
didn’t want anything to change.
By Helen’s definition, at this
point, I am no longer a strong woman. I didn’t stand up for myself
in the moment, count one. I had an opportunity to redeem myself by never
speaking of it again, by continuing to pretend, as I briefly did on that couch,
that it wasn’t real. I could have extended my ten-day speaking hiatus into a
lifetime of denial.
But I’ve broken the silence,
count two.
Somebody else, some stronger
woman than me, blew the whistle on my friend’s dad. He ended up in jail for
child molestation, long before #MeToo. He will never be appointed to the
Supreme Court, and I will never have to publicly out him. My credibility will
never be called into question because I can’t remember the date, or the year,
or the name of the movie, or whether the plot, after all, involved exploding
heads. I will never be the subject of Facebook comments made by people like
Helen, faulting me for how I handled it as a child and how I’m handling it decades
later, in my forties.
It was a small thing. It was
almost nothing. I emerged from high school in Montgomery County, Maryland
virtually unscathed.
* * * * * * *
In a news article, I read that more
than half of the women that have graduated from Holton-Arms School since 1984,
the year of Christine Blasey Ford’s own graduation, have signed a letter of
solidarity with Dr. Ford. They believe her, and applaud her courage in telling
her story. They want a thorough investigation of the accusations against Brett
Kavanaugh before the Senate’s confirmation vote.
It shouldn’t be political. A
woman is assaulted by a man who later appears poised to claim a lifetime seat
in our nation’s highest court. For that woman, it would be unconscionable, disgusting,
regardless of which party she identified with, and whether that was his party, too. If she was strong enough, she would tell her story.
Dr. Ford is strong enough. She
stepped out of anonymity, her career, her life far away from the D.C. suburbs,
to alert the nation to Brett Kavanaugh. In doing so, she had to not only relive
what happened to her, but be actively disbelieved, scorned—even mocked by the
President. It shouldn’t be political. But right now, everything is political.
Sexual assault is evidently no exception.
I love the thousand-plus Holton
alumnae supporting Dr. Ford. I love women supporting women. In a society where 81 percent of us have been sexually harassed, and one in three will, at some point in her life, experience contact sexual violence, how can we not support--and believe--one another?
It doesn't matter that she can't remember the date or location. It doesn't matter that she is a Democrat. It doesn't matter that she didn't report it at the time. Of course she didn't report it at the time. She was a little girl, 15 years old, scared, living in a community--and world--that protects its wealthy white men, and raises its women to be nice.
She stood up. She spoke. She did the hard work; as her sisters, we only need to have her back.
To Helen and her friend I say, this is what real strength looks like.
