Dr. Ford's Day in the Senate

I noticed a woman as she wrote on clear tape #MeToo taping it over her bright red lips and then she started to cry.  How many of us even in this era of the #Me Too movement are still speechless crying in private as memories of those moments surface in today’s crisis faced with potentially having not one but two Supreme Court Justices who have been exposed as sexual predators on the highest court in the land.  We are all crying, maybe not openly as this brave woman but she expresses the hurt we are all feeling.

The Women’s March put a call for women to gather in support of Dr. Ford.  I signed up to be counted on that Thursday, the day Dr. Ford was to be questioned in front of the world on her accusations that Brett Kavanaugh sexual assaulted her.  My friend agreed to go with me and I was glad to have company.  We ended standing in the back of the crowd because we arrived late. I started to take pictures a habit I have from my old journalist days.  We drifted to the steps behind the speakers to see the crowd, many of them wrote “I Believe” on their hands they were the real force of the gathering as they held up their hands from time to time chanting, “We Believe Survivors, We Believe Survivors.” 

I took refuge behind my camera so deep in thought I didn’t notice my friend comforting the woman with her mouth taped and tears burning in her eyes. She had her two girls with her.  We reached out to the girls talking and playing with them so that this woman could have her moment.  My friend comforted the woman, in a short time these two developed a connection.  

I froze as the woman cried, I have to confess sexual assault makes me uncomfortable.  As Dr. Ford’s story unfolded I got more and more uncomfortable like I always do.  Like other women if I was to write here #MeToo for every time I was sexual assaulted it would take up the whole page and if you think I’m uncomfortable now just thinking about this, I have become more uncomfortable as I write this. Memories of these untold moments are stuffed deep down in my emotional memories so that I don’t get uncomfortable.  Mostly of what you see is my anger not my tears.  The woman who cried has become my hero, she expressed what I feel in this whole narrative.  Dianne Feinstein got it right when she said, we have gone from blaming the victim to ignoring the victim. 

Maybe they think if they ignore us we will go away, women have started to stand up and fight back rejecting the paradigm of blame.  It has been years since we heard from Anita Hill, and Monica Lewinski but they have come forward in recent months in the wake of all the sexual assault allegations speaking up all of us women.   These two women know that sexual assault make women more vulnerable to anguish and torment than any other group of people who experience violent crimes this has been confirmed by a study RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network did.  I say to all women, take care of yourself during this time, for we all need support, turn to friends and read this article in the NY Times it helped me to take steps to cope with this awful news story that we can’t ignore and is so important to women getting justice.  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/style/self-care-sexual-assault-survivor-guide.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FSexual%20Harassment&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=collection

We will get through this and every little step forward is a small success toward healing.

In the words of Andre Lorde, “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”