Grenades
This morning Ronan and Jane Mayer published an article in the New Yorker about an accusation of attempted rape against Brett Kavanaugh, nominee for the Supreme Court. The article says that a woman sent a letter to her member of Congress about an incident that occured in high school. The letter says that Kavanaugh and a classmate tried to force themselves on her and she escaped. It was was sent in July and was forwarded to Senator Feinstein but stalled out with her until now. In response to these allegations, Senator Chuck Grassley released a letter signed by 65 women who knew Kavanaugh in high school asserting that he treated women honorably and with respect.
Everything about this story makes me sick. The way the letter of was handled by the Democrats who received it, and the timing of its release. The response that Grassley had ready to go at a moment’s notice, in spite of how difficult it would have been to find 65 women who knew Kavanaugh 35 years ago and how long ago he must have started working on that. Especially given that Kavanaugh went to an all boys school. Even Ronan Farrow’s brace for impact insta-story warnings make me sick.
The knot in my stomach keeps tightening.
A man who sexually harassed people already sits on the Supreme Court. His name is Clarence Thomas and he is a Supreme Court Justice in spite of allegations brought against him by Anita Hill, loudly and in public. She was vilified, and he was named to the highest court in the land, where he gets to help decide cases that determine what we can do with their own bodies, how we can determine our own futures, whether or not abusers will get to keep their guns even after they beat us bloody. And we’re in very real danger of this happening again.
The path will be smoothed by Grassley’s letter and the 65 women who signed it. Because the things that make us question the victims who come forward are the same things that make us question ourselves. Did this really happen? Does it really count? Was it really that bad? What is one story of violence to 65 of honor. What’s one dose of GHB to thousands of doors opened, hundreds of cabs home, ten glowing references you gave, three women who couldn’t have done it without you?
At the end of the day I can’t think of 65 people I knew in high school, let alone of the same gender, let alone at nearby schools. And I’ve been wrestling with it all morning, but I can’t think of a single guy in high school I would have signed this letter for, knowing these allegations were coming out.
Whether or not these allegations are true, and I tend to believe they are, it is clear that the GOP doesn’t care. Grassley was ready with his letter, ready to refute this story with the idea that 65 women who went to high school near Brett Kavanaugh can guarantee his good behavior. And Kavanaugh was nominated by a president who has been credibly accused of sexual assault by 19 women, who bragged about it on tape, and who has faced no consequences for his action, no pushback from the party that acquiesces to his every whim. As long as Chuck Grassley and Mitch McConnell get their victory, and their party gets to cement their power for a generation, who cares about one woman who was hurt such a long time ago?
I am grateful that Ronan Farrow cares. I’m grateful that he has made himself the vessel for these stories, for people coming forward about the hurt that was inflicted on them by powerful men. Because everything in society tells women to be quiet, that our stories are grenades best kept to ourselves.
But I wish we were taking this back for ourselves. I wish Jane Mayer and Meghan Twohey and Jodi Kantor and especially Tarana Burke got more of the credit for this movement. And there is something truly devastating in the knowledge that Kavanaugh might still get his confirmation, that these men are going to preside over my constitutional right to my body for a generation or more. And that there are women in the Senate who are going to help him do it.
It wasn’t enough for Heidi Heitkamp and Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and Claire McCaskill to know that he was nominated by a Republican party whose entire infrastructure has been dedicated to overturning Roe v. Wade for decades. The GOP’s constant attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, their ritual objections to covering birth control under the ACA, their support of a president who whose disregard for women is clear every time he interacts with one — that wasn’t enough. And this news about Brett Kavanaugh might not be either.
In all this noxious milieu, I don’t begrudge anyone their vindictive triumph, or their heroes. We’re all holding on to what we need to in this chaos. And we need these revelations, if we’re going to make any progress. We need to tell the truth so loudly and with such force that we cannot be ignored, so that we may change one mind, two minds here and there, so another party is free from danger, another person’s potential is fulfilled, another life is saved.
The people who carry the violence are the never the ones who committed it and the people whose lives are curtailed by trauma must watch their abusers rise up through the ranks, to determine where they can get health care, what TV shows they’ll see, what books they’ll read. But with each influential person brought down, more people are empowered to come forward, to tell the truth, to shift some of the burden to those who deserve it, even knowing they’ll never be fully free of it. And that’s how I’ll fight this sick feeling, that’s what I want to come from this vindictive, hollow joy.
So while I’m grateful for Ronan Farrow and the fear he strikes in the hearts of powerful abusers everywhere, he’s not the one they should be afraid of. We are.
