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Christine Blasey Ford: The Conference Room
Today, an image struck me: a photograph of a newly-minted conference room at the San Francisco branch of women’s only social club The Wing. The space shows women sitting around a white table with black chairs; tasteful, modern decor placed here and there. The camera’s focus, though, is in the foreground, where painted in gold leaf across the clear glass door is the name Christine Blasey Ford.
Dr. Ford’s name has appeared daily across all major news networks for the last month; the result of her status as one of (now Supreme Court Justice) Brett Kavanaugh’s numerous sexual violence victims. In late September of 2018, Ford gave a composed and detailed summary of her assault before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the rest of the world. This televised display of trauma proved, unsurprisingly, to be a small piece of a larger scam in which Ford’s pain, and the echoed pain of millions of women, was acknowledged to a satisfactory degree, and Kavanaugh’s confirmation strode through its checkpoints, largely without actual technical issue.
Despite the brute force that has worked to silence her, Ford has stood tall. Her actions are undoubtedly brave by any standard, and her words and actions have given way to a renewed, powerful ripple of the Me Too movement, now officially one year old and finding its footing amidst the gray areas and the difficult…
