Women Shouldn't Have to Make Heroic Sacrifices Just to Hold Their Abusers Accountable
Christine Blasey Ford is the latest in a long line of women who have been asked to make an impossible sacrifice.
From the moment she wrote to Senator Dianne Feinstein, alleging that Brett Kavanaugh attempted to rape her when they were both teenagers, her life has been on the line. She knows this; it’s why she asked Feinstein to keep her account confidential. That it did not remain so - and that Ford’s name, and place of employment, and home address, were all revealed - was, probably, inevitable. And it is just as inevitable that the GOP is refusing to listen or consider her account unless she agrees to make herself even more visible, and open herself up to even crueler attacks. This is the choice facing sexual assault accusers: Tell your story, and expose yourself to the public scrutiny and punishment our culture inflicts on women who tattle, or stay silent, and watch your assailant ascend to the heights of power unscathed.
Since being identified as Kavanaugh’s accuser, Ford has had to vacate her home and go into hiding, taking her children with her. Several alt-right accounts have posted her address online, encouraging their followers to go after her; she’s been inundated with death threats, and once a doxing has taken place, any death threat has to be treated as credible. For the foreseeable future, she is a woman whose life is permanently at risk.
This, too, is a typical outcome for women who are publicly caught up in the sexual misbehavior of powerful men. Last January, Tina Johnson’s house burned down after she claimed that Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore had groped her. After Ken Starr forced Monica Lewinsky to testify against Bill Clinton, she didn’t find work for two decades. Anita Hill - who testified that Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her at his Supreme Court confirmation hearing, nearly thirty years ago, and who has, more than any of us, reason to despair - has written that she received “an answering machine full of messages, some worse than I had anticipated–death threats and threats of rape or sodomy. People felt free to leave the most cruel and revolting messages imaginable.” She is intermittently attacked by the right wing to this day.
Which is to say: Much has been made of whether Christine Blasey Ford will or will not testify against Kavanaugh at his hearings - whether she’ll have her “Anita Hill moment,” or whether (as the GOP is clearly hoping) she’ll refuse to testify, cling to whatever scraps of privacy or anonymity are still left to her, and thereby give them an excuse to write her off. This is the choice: Be heard, and suffer from having your integrity and character attacked, or be silent, and suffer from not being heard at all. There’s no suffering-free option.
It’s important to note that we actually don’t need Ford to testify in order to regard the allegations as credible, serious and relevant. There’s corroborating testimony, both in the notes of her therapist, to whom she described the incident back in 2012, and from other women in her social circle at the time. (Cristina King Miranda, who went to school with Ford, wrote on Facebook that “this incident did happen. Many of us heard about it in school and Christine’s recollection should be more than enough for us to truly, deeply know that the accusation is true.”) Ford also passed a polygraph test - and, though polygraphs are unreliable, the mere fact that she voluntarily sat for one speaks volumes. Finally, she herself has asked for an FBI investigation into the claim of assault; in a letter, her attorneys state that “a full investigation by law enforcement officials will ensure that the crucial facts and witnesses in this matter are assessed in a non-partisan manner, and that the Committee is fully informed before conducting any hearing or making any decisions."
If this were a criminal trial for sexual assault, we might need the victim to testify. But it isn’t. It’s a hearing in which Kavanaugh’s character and judgment are being assessed. Allegations like these, in which the accuser has voluntarily offered up her account for outside verification - and received it, from more than one source - can and should be taken under consideration, with or without Ford being physically present in the room with Kavanaugh. Or, as Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has horrifyingly suggested, sharing a table with him.
Yet Republicans, by and large, have rejected the idea of an FBI investigation - which would, after all, only help them to know what questions to ask if Ford testified - and insisted on the testimony or nothing. This is the only answer they will accept: Christine Blasey Ford in a room or at a table with the man she says tried to rape her. She is expected to do this, knowing full well that any increase in visibility will likely increase the level of threats she receives from the alt-right, and knowing that other women in her position have had their careers and private lives ripped apart.
As penance for having a story to tell, Christine Blasey Ford is expected to provide us with the spectacle of her public re-traumatization. And, if she makes the sane choice - the choice you or I would likely make - and backs away from the spotlight before her house burns down, we’ll call her a liar. After all, why would a woman who’s telling the truth walk away?
Here’s why: Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court. After everything Anita Hill said in her testimony, after everything she risked to give it to us, the men in power still decided Thomas was worthy of filling one of the United States’ most powerful and consequential roles. The same thing may happen with Kavanaugh - the GOP seem determined to cram him through, no matter how many horrifying crimes (er, excuse me, “rough horseplay”) he may have committed.
Sexual assault survivors, more often than not, don’t gain anything by becoming visible. Their testimonies rarely manage to make a dent in abusers’ reputations. More often than not, the best these women can do - the thing they risk their reputations and mental health for, the goal they sacrifice their homes or their jobs or their lives to achieve - is to become an asterisk, a tiny footnote in the long story of an abuser’s rise to power. They ruin their lives to become parentheticals: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (once accused of harassment by Anita Hill). The game is not worth the candle; we are asking Christine Blasey Ford to throw herself on the tracks, in a last-ditch attempt to stop Kavanaugh’s confirmation, knowing full well the train will probably run her over regardless.
Christine Blasey Ford has chosen to speak, despite the cost. She’s a hero. Anita Hill was, and still is, a hero. Any woman who speaks up about a powerful, predatory man is helping to create a culture where survivors can be heard. But women shouldn’t have to make heroic sacrifices just to hold their abusers accountable, or to live in a country where those abusers don’t call the shots. It’s okay for women to just be people, with lives, which we are unwilling to see torn apart in the name of truth or principle. We have asked Christine Blasey Ford to make an impossible sacrifice. She isn’t the first and won’t be the last. Until we live in a culture that genuinely values women more than the powerful male predators they confront, women will still be asked to throw themselves on the tracks to save us - one by one by one.
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