Hillary Clinton: Bill Clinton didn’t abuse his power because Monica Lewinsky ‘was an adult’

The assertion shouldn’t be stunning to anyone. It’s true. Anything else infantilizes adult women and assumes they cannot make their own decisions or be held responsible for their own actions. Any woman who doesn’t think other adult women are empowered to make their own decision does a disservice to #metoo.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh, alternating between tantrum and pout, would like you to know that he has suffered.

…Kavanaugh, who has a lifetime appointment as a federal circuit court judge, lamented that he may never be able to teach law again or coach girls’ basketball. He …accused those who pushed for the hearing and a delay in the vote on his confirmation of seeking “to blow me up and to take me down” and asserted that the process has “destroyed” his family, his career ― his very life.

…But make no mistake: None of that rises to the level of destroying his life. He is not a victim, and what he has gone through is nowhere near on par with Blasey’s experiences.

…It does seem that Kavanaugh and his family have gone through a difficult time, facing public scorn and even death threats. No people should be made to fear for their safety because they are in the public eye.

But the idea that Kavanaugh has suffered anywhere near what Blasey has allegedly suffered or perhaps even more so is ludicrous. He may resent the way the confirmation process is going. He may be outraged that he isn’t facing a smooth path from one of the nation’s second-highest courts to the nation’s highest court.

…Kavanaugh and his family shouldn’t have to face death threats. And it certainly seems he’s impatient with his Senate confirmation process. But he has faced few, if any, repercussions for these alleged actions over his lifetime. At most, he currently risks not being confirmed to one of the most powerful positions in the country. The women who say he victimized them, on the other hand, have had to carry the consequences their entire lives.

The GOP Wants Us To Think Being Accused Is As Bad As Being Assaulted | HuffPost

hmmmm

Blasey, a remarkably brave woman who agreed to be grilled in front of the entire nation about her greatest trauma ― an attempted rape she says was perpetrated by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh when they were both in high school ― wished that she could be more helpful.

…Over the course of those four hours, Blasey didn’t yell. She didn’t betray an ounce of rage, even though she had every right to be very, very, very angry. She told the Senate Judiciary Committee that her decision to come forward publicly meant that her “greatest fears have been realized.”

And yet she did not interrupt anyone during the hearing. She laughed at Grassley’s bad jokes about coffee. She was kind and respectful to the senators who questioned her.

That’s because Blasey, a longtime academic and human woman on Earth, knows what it costs women to deviate from being pleasant and cooperative. If you are a woman who hopes to be taken seriously in a world where women are still fighting to be taken seriously, to be considered reliable narrators of their own traumas, you have to modulate your behavior to accommodate those in power ― in this case, and in most cases, white men in power.

…For too many of the thousands of American women watching today’s hearing, this contrast felt uncomfortably familiar. To see this dynamic ― her contained politeness, his blazing rage ― play out on the national stage, when the stakes are so high, was nothing short of excruciatingly painful.

Women have spent millennia being polite, even in the face of overwhelming pain and trauma. So many women have spent their lives trying to figure out the right way to behave in order to be taken seriously. The right way to be forceful without being disliked. The right way to protect themselves in a world that often shows how little they are valued.

…Expecting at least the performance of kindness between fellow citizens seems like a no-brainer. But when only one gender is expected to act accordingly, when men are bound by no such conventions and face no consequences for violating norms, women’s politeness is essentially weaponized against them.

Christine Blasey Ford Didn’t Have The Luxury Of Being Angry | HuffPost

I would add that it’s not just men in power that need to be deferring to. Most men, powerful or not, need to be treated like they are the ones in a position of power or they lose their shit in self-absorbed and petulant displays of anger, displays of anger that they near universally feel is behavior that is out of bounds and unreasonably aggressive when it comes from the opposite sex.

No, not all men but let’s be honest, the vast majority of them.

The True Cost of Unreported Sexual Harassment – Bloomberg

hmmmm