Brett Kavanaugh Hearing Response: Why White Privileged Men Still Get Away With Rape
I have been following the Brett Kavanaugh hearing over the last week or so and it has become increasingly difficult not to comment on what we have witnessed unfold all across social and print media.
Earlier this year we watched another high profile trail unfold on social media in Ireland. The case against a party of International rugby players, one of which the accuser willingly went home with, just not the others who attempted to get ‘involved’ in the rape/sexual assault.
The accused were acquitted, only after the victim faced 60 hours in the witness stand defending the make up she had on that night, the clothes (specifically underwear) she was wearing, how often she drinks and gets drunk, how many previous boyfriends/sexual relationships she has had and even if she often has one night stands.
The defendants spent approximately 4–6 hours in the stand. The most notable difference with their time in the stand was their characters were not cross examined in the court. This is only because they could afford the luxury of highly skilled defence lawyers blocking any evidence against character on the grounds that the trail should only include facts from the night.
The victim, however, didn’t have that same protection. She got up in the stand and was forced to defend her character over and over again. She had to prove that she was careful of her sexuality and that the only way these men could have intimate knowledge of her would be via force — the only way.
She was made to look like the type of woman who would have group sex with famous rugby players and would later regret her actions when she sobered up and didn’t get the attention she had hoped for or expected. In other words, it was her fault she went through this terrifying ordeal.
There was an outpour of the most disgusting misogyny when they were acquitted. The woman was slated all over social media in the worst kind of way. Her credibility dismissed. Men’s rights activists couldn’t hold back — nor did they want to — their outright hate of women. But what worries me about this response, is that this is not an isolated case and this is not an uncommon response.
Rape and sexual assault are unbelievably common. However, convictions are unbelievably rare. What has caught my attention with the Kavanaugh hearing in particular, is that Dr Christine Blasey Ford has been subjected to the exact same treatment. She in-front of the whole world, has had to defend why she didn’t come forward before, her motive for coming forward now and whether someone was making her tell this story.
Her credibility has been publicly questioned and she has continuously been called a liar, amongst many other names, by people from all over America and the Globe — men and women. But let’s not forget that Kavanaugh has repeatedly told lies throughout the hearing.
He lied about his time at Yale. He lied about stolen emails. He lied about how much he drank. He lied about the meaning of a Devils Triangle, stating it is only a drinking game, when it in fact it refers to a sexual act involving two men and one woman. He lied about not watching Dr Ford’s testimony. He lied about sexual misconduct. All whilst under oath.
It baffles me that a grown man who’s defence which was nothing more than an aggressive tantrum — avoiding answering majority of the questions asked — is more credible than a woman who remained calm and answered most of the questions designed to paint her in a false picture, whilst trying to and repeatedly saying she just wanted to be helpful.
His responses were almost comical. “I am a great man!”. “I was top of my classes academically”. “I was captain of the varsity basketball team!”. “I went to Yale Law School”. When confronted on his obvious drink problem he responded “ I like beer!”. All he did was cry, raise his voice, interrupt senators whinge and quite frankly embarrass his nation.
But like I previously said, this is not an isolated case. And this is the reason why women (and men) do not come forward about rape or sexual assaults. Can you imagine a woman, facing her rapist in court, being told his tears are worth more than her truth and determination? Whilst also facing social media and print media alive with opinions and hypothesis.
Can you imagine suffering a crime as intimate and as traumatising as being raped or sexual assaulted, and then having defend how valuable access to your reproductive organs are in court? To have go up against aggressive examination when repeating over and over what happened to you, in order to see justice served?
It’s no surprise victims of rape and sexual assault don’t forward. Trails are not about the victim; the woman or the crime. It’s about the worth of her sexuality. The credibility of her coming forward. It’s about how valuable and exclusive access to her reproductive organs and beyond are. Any woman who has gone through the process of a court case for rape or sexual assault will tell you she was the one who was on trail, not the accused.
The cause of this is down do to one specific, damaging and more often than not false myth that women fabricate rape accusations to ruin men’s lives. This kind of victim-blaming attitude not only marginalizes victims, it reinforces what abusers have been saying all along; that it is the victims fault that this has happened.
By engaging in victim-blaming attitudes, society allows the abuser to perpetrate rape or sexual assault while avoiding accountability for their actions. This is no longer acceptable and women will no longer tolerate it.
As one woman said after the Kavanaugh hearing “Women no longer want allies anymore. We want men who are willing to be traitors. We need men who are willing to be traitors to patriarchy”.
This isn’t just about Dr Christine Blasey Ford or the case in Ireland. To end rape culture, we must believe survivors. We must learn from our previous mistakes. We must end victim-blaming.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of rape or sexual assault, advice can be found at the website below:
www.safeline.org.uk
