A Salute To Courageous Women

Ever since the explosive Senate committee interviews with Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh, I have been bombarded with e-mails, phone calls and personal conversations asking when I was going to write about my take on the event. I have made a half-dozen tries to put in writing what I feel. But each time I make an attempt I am overcome by anger, and now in light of the final outcome, I have been smothered by a grey sadness on behalf of American women. And what could I say that has not already been spelled out? But Jan Linn, a ministerial colleague, has stated the situation far better Than any of my efforts. So I have received permission to reproduce his blog as my week’s column. It is not the first time I have relied on Jan’s wisdom and ability to describe what I feel. So here is his analysis:

"Courageous Women Changing America"

October 2, 2018 by linnposts.com

The national debate sparked by last week’s testimony of Christine Blasey Ford against Brett Kavanaugh reflects the fact that sexual assault and abuse are examples of the larger issue of male hegemony that has existed in our country – and the world – for too long.

Let’s not forget that women only gained the right to vote in 1920, having been denied that fundamental right by men for 132 years.

Yet, little changed in America for women in real terms until Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972. That set off the kind of debate we are seeing now. By the way, the Amendment is still fighting for its life, needing only one more state to reach the 38 state threshold for ratification.

The #MeToo movement is a direct descendent of the equal rights amendment fight.

But the key point here is that the charges against Kavanaugh cannot escape this historical context, try as he did last Thursday to make it all about politics.

Of course, it is about politics because he was appointed by a political leader, is seeking confirmation by other political leaders, and being opposed by still others.

But it is about much more than politics. It’s about the way he and most men were raised to view women.

His mother may have been a competent professional who stood out because she achieved success in a male dominated profession (law), but Kavanaugh’s high school and college behavior showed that he was more influenced by the way the dominant culture views and treats women than he was by his mother’s personal achievements.

The “boys will be boys” mantra we have heard as a justification for anything he might have done is a perfect example of why we know sexism, and in some instances outright misogyny, remain embedded in male attitudes and actions toward women.

Moreover, the Lindsey Graham tirades during the hearings proved that many men still do not understand the cultural shift the #MeToo movement represents.

Graham wasn’t just protesting how he believed Kavanaugh was being treated. He was lamenting the loss of power he feels as a man because of the sins of our past.

I believe most women simply want equal rights and equal treatment under the law, but if some are angry at men, let’s not forget that we men have earned it.

Social unrest doesn’t erup out of a vacuum. It is always rooted in injustice, in this instance, injustice women have endured.

That is what Kavanaugh is caught up in at this moment. He wants to blame some orchestrated left wing conspiracy for his troubles, but if he is a victim as he wants to believe, it is of his own making simply because he has enjoyed and taken advantage of the privilege being male and being white have afforded him.

The irony for me is that I actually believe Kavanaugh genuinely cannot remember what he did to Dr. Ford because drunk boys often don’t remember the stupid and sometimes violent things they did.

Every grown man today knows exactly why Kavanaugh cannot remember what he did in high school, and also why Dr. Ford paid the price for being a girl in a man’s world back then.

I saw the behavior of drunk guys in high school. I got into a fight with one of them at a party because of a sexual slur he made about the girl I was with whom he had once dated. He laughed, too, when he made his nasty comment, until we went outside.

By the way, I don’t remember lot of the details of that night. I don’t remember the name of the girl whose house we were in, or the friends of the guy I fought, or anyone else who was there. I only remember the girl I was with, a friend of mine and his date, and the guy I fought. But not remembering much about that night doesn’t change the fact that the fight actually happened.

If men today are angry because they don’t feel safe because of the #MeToo movement, it is because there is no other way for our society to redeem the way men have treated women, sadly sometimes with the support of other women.

So this controversy is not going away regardless of what happens with the Kavanaugh nomination because it is a moment in a much larger social revolution now taking place.

I believe our society has always become better when we have had to undergo this kind of upheaval.

That will be the case again because of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony that captured the nation’s attention last week.

We are witnessing history in the making, always a messy, turbulent process when people have to confront ugly truths about themselves.

In this instance, we saw the agony on the face of a real person and heard the anguish in her words as she told her story of what happened to her because of the attitude toward girls boys in her generation learned from men.

That not only has to change, it is changing. It comes too late for Dr. Ford, and even for Brett Kavanaugh, but it is not too late for her children and his.

That change will help all of us be and do better.