— from Cindy Wolf —

Here’s the thing…we know it happened. Women who grew up or went to school with those boys know it happened. We were at the parties, at the frats and in the dorm rooms. We drank too. We smoked pot with those boys. We liked sex. Unfortunately, instead of treating us gently as valued friends, some of those boys thought we were prizes to “score” or pleasure providers to coerce at will. The world was their oyster and no one would ever punish them for taking what they wanted.

According to his friends, Kavanaugh drank. He drank like those boys did…to a point where he doesn’t recall everything he did. In his high school yearbook, he boasted about being a “Renate Alumnus”, which the woman in question finds humiliating and dehumanizing. At the very least, it is likely he behaved badly and can’t remember it. He won’t own it and he clearly isn’t all that sorry.

His reaction to the very first allegation could have been “I drank a lot and didn’t behave well as a young man. I cannot remember acting this way, but because I drank until there are gaps in my memory, it is possible this happened. I deeply regret any pain I caused to this woman. In the intervening decades I have tried to live my life with responsibility and dignity. I have worked hard to exemplify how a person in a position of power should act in the world, with a keen awareness of how each action and decision effects other human beings. “That is not what he said or what his allies said. They said it didn’t happen, but even if it did, it happened long ago and shouldn’t count. They said she should have complained sooner and to the police. I say, why? So she could have been further traumatized and ridiculed and silenced by someone else instead of choosing silence for herself?

Nothing good ever happens to people who report mistreatment by people of higher social status, oftentimes even if there is irrefutable evidence. Remember Brock? The girl he terrorized endured his attack, all the trauma of questioning and trial, and then had to hear from the judge about how this young man’s life shouldn’t be ruined. She has to live with the PTSD and psychological damage of aggressive personal physical and psychological attack for the rest of her life, but the concern was for him because she was simply damage done in the wake of his youthful highjinks. We women of privilege with white skins and college educations need to start exacting a high price for this behavior. We need to change our toxic culture. If Kavanaugh gets appointed, at least this time he suffered.

When there are more women in government and law enforcement, when we have the authority to grant and take away power, when the generations of men we raise see us as equals and friends join us in the effort, we will see the profound shift that is possible in society. We will free up all that human energy spent on daily coping with the stress and sadness of disempowerment and voicelessness. We will shift this. It is a matter of time.

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