I’ve read many powerful statements from women that identified with Dr. Ford. Like many, I found her statements powerful and persuasive. But I am a 60+ yr old white male. I know I can’t possibly comprehend the emotions and history that make her story resonate with so many women of all ages.
Still, it resonated viscerally with me for 3 reasons that are totally independent of her gender.
Reason #1: Dr. Ford is a classically trained academic … as am I. As I listened to her testimony, I heard constant echoes of her grounding in science and statistics.
Her facts were precise. She never embellished or overstated those facts. She drew only the conclusions she could reasonably infer from those facts. She was introspective about her process of arriving at conclusions, including how she processed (and forgot) her memories. She was ruthlessly candid about the holes in her data and understanding.
This was the voice of meticulous, classically trained, scientific observer and analyst. A true professional.
Somehow, she had the courage to apply her intellectual firepower to an event of profound personal pain and terror. Her emotions were clearly in turmoil, but her intellectual craftsmanship remained impeccable.
Wow. Wow. Just …. Wow!
Reason #2A: When I went to college (a looooong time ago) I was rushed for a fraternity and accepted. The day after I was pledged, I withdrew. Being pledged was supposed to be an “honor”, but I concluded that I couldn’t live life as a drone in a hive. If I was going to do something, it would be my decision and my accountability. I rapidly got the impression that everyone in the frat was supposed to “have each other’s back” … aka cover for each other.
What I heard from Kavanaugh and what I have read about Mark Judge (frat or not) was exactly that kind of mutual ass-covering that I could not tolerate then and cannot tolerate now.
Reason #2B: I taught at an SEC school for 2+ decades. Greek fraternities are HUGE at SEC schools. I taught hundreds of frat boys. The frat boys were often arrogant and viewed themselves as entitled in class. They also led serious academic dishonesty on campus. In more than a few big classes in my major, unenrolled students would turn up for exams … to snag the test questions for the Frat database. It happened to several of my colleagues. It didn’t happen to me as far as I know, because I changed the entire grading system from semester to semester. Inconvenient for me, but the Frat system pissed me off.
Bret Kavanaugh reminds me of the obnoxious frat boys I had in a class. To be fair, not all were assholes … a few were, and still are, or will yet become, notable human beings.
Bottom Line: When I was in high school and college, I was just as sexually immature and scared as Brett Kavanaugh. But the idea of brutalizing a girl to relieve that feeling seemed as alien to me then as it does now. If I wasn’t a “stud”, that was on me … not on some random nice person that I happened to meet. I could not then, and cannot now, comprehend the idea that a twisted “herd mentality” would make that acceptable.