PARTY SHOULDN’T MATTER
Supporting one woman means supporting them all
Taking center stage in American political theater this week: sexual misconduct, women’s rights and a healthy dose of hypocrisy.
Bill Cosby is due to be sentenced today in Pennsylvania for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004. Brett Ka- vanaugh will face the Senate Judiciary Committee to address allegations that he sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford in 1982.
Kavanaugh has to be nervous that Cosby goes first. If Cosby gets no jail time, and is not declared a sexual predator, women could turn with a vengeance to Washington, D.C. Even those who haven’t yet felt compelled to support Ford, may rush to do so if they see it as an opportunity to make up for yet another injustice for women in Pennsylvania, especially if the new allegation against Kavanaugh gains traction. Deborah Ramirez reported that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her when they were college students at Yale. Not the most serious offense, but can the president please find a nominee with allegations of sexual misconduct?
The good news is, the days of men getting away with sexual assault if the victim doesn’t report right away are over. The #MeToo movement has strengthened women’s voices, and politicians are clearly taking notice. Case in point, the district attorney who prosecuted Bill Cosby ran for office on a campaign promise to file charges against the television star. His incumbent opponent refused.
Social media has brought women together over hashtags and petitions, but women have yet to master the power of unity. Indeed, some of the same women who oppose Kavanaugh and Cosby supported or stayed silent about Bill Clinton and other Democrats who committed sexual misconduct. You cannot stand for women’s rights if you only stand for some women’s rights.
Party shouldn’t matter. Victims endure the same pain. Yet the partisan divide on Kavanaugh suggests that no senator has the capacity to see the issue through a nonpartisan lens. It would be refreshing to hear a Republican senator say out loud that violence against women is more important than partisan politics. And it would be nice to hear the same thing from Democrats — who are doing everything they can to ignore the allegations against one of their own, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison.
I do not want Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court because his judicial philosophy is not consistent with my values. But I’m worried that the Kavanaugh situation has us talking about violence against women as a left-right issue. It isn’t. Control over women and sexual access to them has always been a bipartisan male entitlement. If women rise up only when the offender is a Republican, their voices on all issues are muted. Unity, not hypocrisy, will stop the violence.