The Kavanaugh saga should force 40 and 50 something men to reassess how we were raised and what lessons about the treatment of women we took to heart. I openly confess to views and behavior that relegated women to goals of my personal narrative at some expense to their unique identities, and fully believe those attitudes weren’t just wrong and intensely unfair, but cheated me out of countless opportunities at rewarding long-term friendships.
That so many jerks like me exist, so many needlessly burned bridges, speaks to a deeply flawed culture, a Mad Menesque ingratitude toward the better half of our species, and an unacceptable failure to appreciate opportunities our lives offer. MeToo is altering that landscape, forcing men to assess their pasts free of locker room insecurities and male bonding idiocy. Women are better than men, it’s really that simple. To demean them or take their affections for granted, or much worse attack and abuse them, strikes me as not only a grievous sin, but self-destructive behavior as well.
The male propensity to categorize and wall off into segments life chapters provides perhaps the largest chasm between the sexes. The ability to completely shed the skin, and responsibility, of who one was as a full blown narcissist, before marriage and kids, before they quit partying and “got serious” about life, spares many a man the reckoning his mistakes should offer.
Women neither excuse themselves from such emotional chores, nor are allowed by our society the luxury of on-demand reinvention. It’s why doting mothers of teenage girls see them and theirs in an attack on another’s child. Meanwhile, men, in the throes of political tribalism and partitioned experiences, actually empathize with a 17-year old boy getting “a bit carried away” after 12 beers and “roughhousing” with a girl at a rowdy party, even as they innately understand it would all be very different had their little girl come home traumatized and sobbing from such an experience.
Regarding Kavanaugh, it becomes “irrelevant” to a 50 year old’s resume and character how he acted in high school or even college… now he’s a stand up husband and dad… with daughters of his own!! That women seem less ready to extend such a pass speaks to higher standards of personal responsibility, and cognizance of the necessary vagueries of life’s continuity. A far healthier perspective to my eyes.
I freely admit going to bars and parties with groups of buddies was how I spent way too much of my time as a youth, but the goal was to meet a girl and get away from those morons, certainly not to foist them on somebody I was lucky enough to impress! Isolating drunk women to exploit was inconceivable to us, the hallmark of a creep. Evidence of such a predilection, at any age, in the past of a candidate for the highest court should be thoroughly investigated, and if confirmed, disqualifying. Kavanaugh’s formative years appear punctuated by the notion of sex as a group pursuit for cliques of white males, with women more as prey than companions. Who could give out a pass for that?! Moreover, his absolute declarations of innocence and determination to make it his word against hers speaks to a temperament more interested in removing obstacles than pursuing justice. Besides, I don’t believe him.
Of course we did just elect as our POTUS a man whose behavior in his 50s and 60s was as ugly as anything he could have conjured at 17. A man who betrayed our now First Lady with an adult film star, almost immediately after Melania had given birth to his son…. oh, and also with a former Playboy bunny, whose feelings he hurt by offering to pay afterward. A man captured on tape boasting about being a pig, more suited to a sex offender registry than the White House. So perhaps seeking collective emotional growth from the current controversy is a bridge too far.
Yet and still, as we watch this Thursday a victim recount an act of idiocy by a drunken preppie that scarred her youth and impacted her adulthood, it’s fair to ask ourselves how much of the backwash she is sure to receive from inquisitors more concerned with ruining her credibility than discovering the truth defined our upbringing on such matters. It will surprise no one that the GOP, led by their mysoginist champion, will roll over whoever necessary to ram Kavanaugh through. Fox/AM has made it a defining act of purity, and pledged not to forget apostasy. Consciences are for snowflakes; a durable high court majority is at hand. No matter how ugly it gets, the ends justify the means. A nomination that, in most any other time and with any other group in our history would be DOA, might just seep out of the Judiciary Committee and prevail… like every other stain the last 19 months has spilled upon us.
Perhaps this nadir can offer some degree of silver lining and further encourage rigorous examination of why much in our culture and national life still tempts our sons to degrade our daughters. Finally gaining clarity on what creates victims both affords them some closure and protects others. Who knows, it may even help restore some of the dignity Kavanaugh will exact from the institution he revised his history to join. BC