MeToo

No, this post is not about me, although I do have my own MeToo story. Mine might be unremarkable in comparison to many of the testimonies of sexual assault on record since the movement began nearly a year ago. It's a sad commentary on our culture, but a necessary awakening to initiate change in regard to an illness that spares no age, no race, no economic status, no educational accomplishment, no political affiliation.

Unremarkable, but still something I have never forgotten and likely never will. It is as much a part of my teenage experience as pajama parties, first dates, sports events, dances, crushes, heartbreak, and insecurity. I was fifteen years old . . . the same age as Christine Blasey Ford, the woman behind the accusations against Brett Kavanaugh, the Trump administration's nominee for the Supreme Court, when she claims she was sexually assaulted by him. Of course she has never forgotten the incident. She was fifteen when she experienced her MeToo moment . . . the same age as I was.

While memory can distort, exaggerate, minimize, and refine our recollection of pivotal events, it rarely loses sight of the enormity of the event. If you were sexually accosted at a young age, the memory will remain, no matter how much you try to repress or deny it. My memory will still call up the exact location and time of my MeToo moment. I can still see the furniture, hear the voice, smell the dinner cooking in the kitchen, and relive my confusion at what was happening to me. I can also recall my attempts to alert my mother to what had happened, and I will never forget her dismissal of my story, assuring me that it never happened.

So, yes, I believe Christine Blasey Ford, despite the fact that I do not know her. We were both fifteen-year-old dreamers whose innocence was shattered by an act of abuse by a man who wanted to believe that he had some power over us. Our story is one shared by so many of our sisters.

So here is a moment. We are 27 years past the Anita Hill - Clarence Thomas hearings, although that seems like a lifetime ago. We have another chance to hold an abuser to account, and there is no doubt that the stakes are high. If testimonies give credibility to Ford's recollection of events, should Kavanaugh serve a lifetime seat on the highest court in the nation? A court that might consider overruling Roe v. Wade or determine that a sitting President cannot be indicted? Yes, the event happened 36 years ago. Yes, Ford remembers it. The question is: does Kavanaugh? If he doesn't, then it is obvious that the double standard is very powerful. And if he does, then it is obvious that he has lied.  And while lying may be in vogue in the Age of Trump, I don't think any of us wants a liar to serve on the Supreme Court.

Whichever way this goes, it will leave a mark on our culture. Either we will get yet one more dismissal in the form of the "boys will be boys" mantra, or we will have an opportunity to change the cultural message that says women are dispensable and unworthy of protection from predators.

Which will it be? Stay tuned.