She said. by evewallack

she said.

In the U.S. alone, one in three women and one in six men experience some form of sexual violence in their lifetime. This book is dedicated to survivors of sexual assault and sexual violence. I see you, I hear you, and above all, I believe you.

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford Kavanaugh Testimony September 27th, 2018 10:00am

I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified. 5

I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school. Thank you, Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Feinstein, members of the committee. My name is Christine Blasey Ford. I am a professor of psychology at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine. I wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t detail my educational background since it has already been summarized. I have been married to Russell Ford since 2002 and we have two children. I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school. I have described the events publicly before. I summarized them in my letter to Ranking Member Feinstein and again in a letter to Chairman Grassley.

I understand and appreciate the importance of your hearing from me directly about what happened to me and the impact that it has had on my life and on my family. I grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. I attended the HoltonArms School in Bethesda, Maryland, from 1978 to 1984. Holton-Arms is an all-girls school that opened in 1901. During my time at this school, girls at HoltonArms frequently met and became friendly with boys from all-boys schools in the area, including the Landon School, Georgetown Prep, Gonzaga High School, as well as our country clubs and other places where kids and families socialized. This is how I met Brett Kavanaugh, the boy who sexually assaulted me.

Ellen DeGeneres

@TheEllenShow

Dr. Ford, I am in awe of your bravery. 177K

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Alyssa Milano

@Alyssa_Milano

I believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. 8,088

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Irin Carmon

@irin

Every woman I am in contact with is sobbing right now. 1,900

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Crystal Marie Fleming

@alwaystheself

I cried listening to the testimony of Dr. Ford this morning during my commute. I cried because the truth of her words rings clear to anyone with a functioning brain and moral compass. That she is required to publicly relive her trauma for a gang of elite men is beyond repulsive. 869

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Emmy Rossum

@emmyrossum

As a survivor of sexual assault, it’s empowering to watch Dr. Ford stand there strong & vulnerable & speak her truth to the entire world. No matter how this goes, we are disrupting a toxic system and this is just the beginning for women, minorities and LGBTQ communities. Together. 7,666

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Lisa Bloom

@LisaBloom

On the day of her grandmother’s funeral, Dr. Ford took her polygraph. Despite a fear of flying, she took 2 cross country flights to handle this. Despite tremendous anxiety at every step, she kept making calls. Courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s going forward despite it. 4,273

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The details about that night that bring me here today are the ones I will never forget.

They have been seared into my memory, and have haunted me episodically as an adult.

During my freshman and sophomore school years, when I was 14 and 15 years old, my group of friends intersected with Brett and his friends for a short period of time. I had been friendly with a classmate of Brett’s for a short time during my freshman and sophomore year, and it was through that connection that I attended a number of parties that Brett also attended. We did not know each other well, but I knew him and he knew me. In the summer of 1982, like most summers, I spent most every day at the Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, Maryland, swimming and practicing diving. One evening that summer, after a day of diving at the club, I attended a small gathering at a house in the Bethesda area. There were four boys I remember specifically being there: Brett Kavanaugh, Mark Judge, a boy named P.J., and one other boy whose name I cannot recall. I also remember my friend Leland attending. I do not remember all of the details of how that gathering came together, but like many that summer, it was almost surely a spur-of-themoment gathering. I truly wish I could be more

helpful with more detailed answers to all of the questions that have and will be asked about how I got to the party and where it took place and so forth. I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t remember as much as I would like to. But the details that — about that night that bring me here today are the ones I will never forget. They have been seared into my memory, and have haunted me episodically as an adult. When I got to the small gathering, people were drinking beer in a small living room/family roomtype area on the first floor of the house. I drank one beer. Brett and Mark were visibly drunk. Early in the evening, I went up a very narrow set of stairs leading from the living room to a second floor to use the restroom. When I got to the top of the stairs, I was pushed from behind into a bedroom across from the bathroom. I couldn’t see who pushed me. Brett and Mark came into the bedroom and locked the door behind them. There was music playing in the bedroom. It was turned up louder by either Brett or Mark once we were in the room.I was pushed onto the bed, and Brett got on top of me. He began running

his hands over my body and grinding into me. I yelled, hoping that someone downstairs might hear me, and I tried to get away from him, but his weight was heavy. Brett groped me and tried to take off my clothes. He had a hard time, because he was very inebriated, and because I was wearing a one-piece bathing suit underneath my clothing. I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help. When I did, Brett put his hand over my mouth to stop me from yelling. This is what terrified me the most, and has had the most lasting impact on my life.

It was hard for me to breathe, and I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me. Both Brett and Mark were drunkenly laughing during the attack. They seemed to be having a very good time. Mark seemed ambivalent, at times urging Brett on and at times telling him to stop. A couple of times, I made eye contact with Mark and thought he might try to help me, but he did not. During this assault, Mark came over and jumped on the bed twice while Brett was on top of me. And the last time that he did this, we toppled over and Brett was no longer on top of me. I was able to get up and run out of the room.

Directly across from the bedroom was a small bathroom. I ran inside the bathroom and locked the door. I waited until I heard Brett and Mark leave the bedroom, laughing and loudly walk down the narrow stairway, pinballing off the walls on the way down.

very, very few friends that I had this traumatic experience. I told my husband before we were married that I had experienced a sexual assault. I had never told the details to anyone — the specific details — until May 2012, during a couples counseling session.

I waited, and when I did not hear them come back up the stairs, I left the bathroom, went down the same stairwell through the living room, and left the house.

The reason this came up in counseling is that my husband and I had completed a very extensive, very long remodel of our home and I insisted on a second front door, an idea that he and others disagreed with and could not understand.

I remember being on the street and feeling this enormous sense of relief that I had escaped that house and that Brett and Mark were not coming outside after me. Brett’s assault on me drastically altered my life. For a very long time, I was too afraid and ashamed to tell anyone these details. I did not want to tell my parents that I, at age 15, was in a house without any parents present, drinking beer with boys. I convinced myself that because Brett did not rape me, I should just move on and just pretend that it didn’t happen. Over the years, I told

In explaining why I wanted a second front door, I began to describe the assault in detail. I recall saying that the boy who assaulted me could someday be on the U.S. Supreme Court, and spoke a bit about his background at an elitist all-boys school in Bethesda, Maryland. My husband recalls that I named my attacker as Brett Kavanaugh. After that May 2012 therapy session, I did my best to ignore the memories of the assault, because recounting them caused me to relive the experience, and caused panic and anxiety.

I called my congressional representative and let her receptionist know that someone on the president’s shortlist had attacked me. I also sent a message to the encrypted Washington Post confidential tip line. I did not use my name, but I provided the names of Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge. I stated that Mr. Kavanaugh had assaulted me in the 1980s in Maryland. This was an extremely hard thing for me to do, but I felt that I couldn’t not do it. Over the next two days, I told a couple of close friends on the beach in Aptos, California, that Mr. Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted me. I was very conflicted as to whether to speak out. Occasionally, I would discuss the assault in an individual therapy session, but talking about it caused more reliving of the trauma, so I tried not to think about it or discuss it. But over the years, I went through periods where I thought about the attack. I had confided in some close friends that I had had an experience with sexual assault. Occasionally, I stated that my assailant was a prominent lawyer or judge, but I did not use his name. I do not recall each person I spoke to about Brett’s assault. And some friends have reminded me of these conversations since the publication of the Washington Post story on September 16th, 2018. But until July 2018, I had never named Mr. Kavanaugh as my attacker outside of therapy. This changed in early July 2018. I saw press reports stating that Brett Kavanaugh was on the shortlist of a list of very well-qualified Supreme Court nominees. I thought it was my civic duty to relay the information I had about Mr. Kavanaugh’s conduct so that those considering his nomination would know about this assault.On July 6th, I had a sense of urgency to relay the information to the Senate and the president as soon as possible, before a nominee was selected. I did not know how, specifically, to do this.

On July 9th, I received a return phone call from the office of Congresswoman Anna Eshoo after Mr. Kavanaugh had become the nominee. I met with her staff on July 18th and with her on July 20th, describing the assault and discussing my fears about coming forward.Later, we discussed the possibility of sending a letter to Ranking Member Feinstein, who is one of my state senators, describing what occurred. My understanding is that Representative Eshoo’s office delivered a copy of my letter to Senator Feinstein’s office on July 30th. The letter included my name, but also a request that it be kept confidential. My hope was that providing the information confidentially would be sufficient to allow the Senate to consider Mr. Kavanaugh’s serious misconduct without having to make myself, my family or anyone’s family vulnerable to the personal attacks and invasions of privacy that we have faced since my name became public. In a letter dated August 31st, Senator Feinstein wrote that she would not share the letter without my explicit consent, and I appreciated this commitment. Sexual assault victims should be able to decide for themselves when and whether their private experience is made public.

Anna Swartz

@Anna_Snackz

men are too emotional for politics.

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Sen Dianne Feinstein

@SenFeinstein

We are here for one reason, to determine whether Judge Kavanaugh should be elevated to one of the most powerful positions in our country. This is NOT a trial of Dr. Ford. It is a job interview for Judge Kavanaugh. Is he the best we can do? 12.8K

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Kamala Harris

@KamalaHarris

Dr. Ford has passed a polygraph test and given the Commitee the results. Judge Kavanaugh has not. She has called for outside witnesses to testify. Judge Kavanaugh has not. She called for an FBI investigation. Judge Kavanaugh has not. 281K

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Robert Reich

@RBReich

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Kavanaughâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hysterical and aggressive testimony not only calls into question the legitimacy of his claims, but also demonstrates a temperament unbecoming of Justice on the Supreme Court. (If Kavanaugh were a woman) 6,283

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Apart from the assault itself, these past couple of weeks have been the hardest of my life. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve had to relive this trauma in front of the world.

As the hearing date got closer, I struggled with a terrible choice: Do I share the facts with the Senate and put myself and my family in the public spotlight, or do I preserve our privacy and allow the Senate to make its decision without knowing the full truth of his past behaviors? I agonized daily with this decision throughout August and September 2018. The sense of duty that originally motivated me to reach out confidentially to The Washington Post and to Anna Eshoo’s office when there was still a list of extremely qualified candidates — and to Senator Feinstein — was always there, but my fears of the consequences of speaking out started to exponentially increase. During August 2018, the press reported that Mr. Kavanaugh’s confirmation was virtually certain. Persons painted him as a champion of women’s rights and empowerment. And I believed that if I came forward, my single voice would be drowned out by a chorus of powerful supporters. By the time of the confirmation hearings, I had resigned myself to remaining quiet and letting the committee and the Senate make their decision without knowing what Mr. Kavanaugh had done to me. Once the press started reporting on the existence of the letter I had sent to Senator

Feinstein, I faced mounting pressure. Reporters appeared at my home and at my workplace, demanding information about the letter in the presence of my graduate students. They called my bosses and co-workers, and left me many messages, making it clear that my name would inevitably be released to the media. I decided to speak out publicly to a journalist who had originally responded to the tip I had sent to the Washington Post and who had gained my trust. It was important for me to describe the details of the assault in my own words. Since September 16th, the date of the Washington Post’s story, I have experienced an outpouring of support from people in every state of this country. Thousands and thousands of people who have had their lives dramatically altered by sexual violence have reached out to share their experience and have thanked me for coming forward. We have received tremendous support from our friends and our community. At the same time, my greatest fears have been realized and the reality has been far worse than what I expected. My family and I have been the target of constant harassment and death threats, and I have been called the most vile and hateful names imaginable. These messages, while far fewer than the expressions of support, have been terrifying and have rocked me to my core.

People have posted my personal information and that of my parents online on the Internet. This has resulted in additional e-mails, calls and threats. My family and I were forced to move out of our home. Since September 16th, my family and I have been visiting in various secure locales, at times separated and at times together, with the help of security guards. This past Tuesday evening, my work e-mail was hacked and messages were sent out trying to recant my description of the sexual assault. Apart from the assault itself, these past couple of weeks have been the hardest of my life. I’ve had to relive this trauma in front of the world. And I’ve seen my life picked apart by people on television, on Twitter, other social media, other media and in this body, who have never met me or spoken with me. I have been accused of acting out of partisan political motives. Those who say that do not know me. I’m an independent person and I am no one’s pawn.

My motivation in coming forward was to be helpful and to provide facts about how Mr. Kavanaugh’s actions have damaged my life, so that you could take into a serious consideration as you make your decision about how to proceed. It is not my responsibility to determine whether Mr. Kavanaugh deserves to sit on the Supreme Court. My responsibility is to tell you the truth. I understand that a professional prosecutor has been hired to ask me questions, and I’m committed to doing my very best to answer them. I have never been questioned by a prosecutor, and I will do my best.mAt the same time, because the committee members will be judging my credibility, I do hope to be able to engage directly with each of you.

It is not my responsibility to determine whether Mr. Kavanaugh deserves to sit on the Supreme Court. My responsibility is to tell you the truth.

Wendy R. Sherman

@wendyrsherman

Sexual assault is about the abusive use of power. Today we saw a woman, victime of such trauma, use the power of her person to teach the nation what courage, power and persistence is truly about. Like so many, I am in tears. Thank you Dr. Ford. 468

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Rhen Fitzjarrald

@Rfitzjarrald

The courage of Dr. Ford is awe inspiring and tear inducing. Justice may not ever come, a reality most survivors know all too well, but today, Dr. Ford’s words, her sacrifice gives light and a voice to all survivors who are just now learning to use their voice. #KavanaughHearings 24

Ellen DeGeneres

@TheEllenShow

This tweet is for Dr. Ford. You put yourself through so much and I want you to know it wasn’t in vain. You started a movement and we’ll see it through. If they won’t listen to our voices, then they’ll listen to our voite. 463K

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marisa kabas

@MarisaKabas

They say, “this could ruin his life,” without acknowledging it already ruined hers. 65K

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Rebecca Traister

@rtraister

Much of defensive reaction I’m seeing around Kavanaugh (& not just from the right) suggests that lots of people think a regular part of male development is the stage where boys drunkenly pin down young women & try to assault them. This is not a surprise, but it’s so depressing. 21.7K

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Between Brock Turner and Brett Kavanaugh, when do girls matter? Simcha Fischer

My responsibility is to tell you the truth.

Did Brett Kavanaugh try to rape a 15-year-old girl when he was seventeen? Did he drag her into a bedroom, hold her down on a bed, grind on her, try to tear off her clothes, and hold his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream? I don’t know. I sure hope we find out. We should delay the vote on his appointment while we investigate, because the stakes are pretty high, and we all agree we don’t want an attempted rapist on the Supreme Court. Right? Ah, we don’t agree. Well, dammit. A large contingent of Americans on social media are openly saying they don’t care if he’s guilty. They are saying things like: At seventeen, his brain was still developing, so his culpability is reduced. Hey, he was drunk when he did it. We all do stupid things when we’re drunk. This is normal hetero hijinx. Boys will be boys. It’s not admirable, but it sure is common — shows the guy is normal, in fact. Heck, high five, Brett. Studly guys like us all have some notches on our belts, wink wink. And most of all: But it happened so long ago. There’s no indication he’s still like that. We’re

really going to hold him responsible for something that happened so long ago? There is no sober, cautious examination of the facts, here, from his supporters. All of these arguments rush to the conclusion that he did do exactly what Christine Blasey Ford accuses him of doing. And they are okay with that. They’re willing to wave away the violent attempted rape of a 15-year-old girls as inconsequential. Why? Because . . . she was just a girl, and that’s what girls are for. They’re just girls, and girls are here for men to use. Just like it was just a girl that Brock Turner violently raped behind a dumpster while she was unconscious. It was just a girl when those guys from Steubenville gang raped her and posted the video online. And they got a slap on the wrist and were allowed to get on with their lives, while their young victim is still used as shorthand, in Steubenville circles, for “lying whore.” Because she’s just a girl. When a young man gets drunk and tries to rape a girl, there will always be someone to say he shouldn’t be punished too severely — shouldn’t lose his place on the team, shouldn’t be kicked out of school, certainly shouldn’t serve any jail

Who is thinking about the actual human girl in Blasey’s account, who wept and screamed and fought back, while those normal, healthy, hetero boys turned up the music and pushed her back onto the bed? time — because don’t you see, he has so much promise? This might damage his future! And what about her future? What about her? Who is thinking about the actual human girl in Blasey’s account, who wept and screamed and fought back, while those normal, healthy, hetero boys turned up the music and pushed her back onto the bed? Brock Turner got six months (a longer sentence would have had “a severe impact” on him) and served three, because he had so much promise. Austin Wilkerson raped an unconscious girl (after pretending to help her, to throw off the scent of onlookers) and was punished by having to sleep in jail, but went to school and work as normal during the day. David Becker got two years probation after raping two unconscious girls. Because those boys had such a bright future ahead of them. They’re just being boys! This is what happens! This is what boys do! But the girls? Well . . . this is what girls get. This is what they are for. This is what you are saying, when you want to give men a pass for something they did long ago. This is what you are conveying to millions of women who have been raped and abused,

when you allow yourself to say “yes, yes, sure, sure, of course rape is bad, but this is the supreme court we’re talking about, here! This isn’t just the rape of a girl we’re talking about, this is serious!” I know how hard it is to see this clearly, to keep this firmly in mind when there’s a political storm swirling around. I know you want to talk about how awful Dianne Feinstein is, and how biased the media is, and how suspicious the timing of it all is. Hell, I fell for that with Anita Hill. I let them convince me that Clarence Thomas was the savior we needed to put this country to rights, and that this trashy, unhinged woman was just sniffing around him looking for glory, probably paid off by some secret politics operatives to make up a story that didn’t even sound true. But believe it or not, politics isn’t the most important thing. A supreme court nomination isn’t the most important thing. The most important thing, when stories like this are in the news, is the victim, and how we treat them, how we speak about them. The most important thing is that we don’t lose ourselves in the ideological storm, and allow ourselves to say anything that even sounds like “but it was just attempted rape” or “but he

When a woman says, “This man raped me a long time ago,” we say, “But that was in the past. He can’t change the past.” When a girl says, “This boy raped me last night,” we say, “But his future! We can’t wreck his future.” was just a teenager when he did it.” When you say that, you are telling victims that it doesn’t matter what happened to them, because they are just girls. Boys need their bright futures, but rape is what girls are for. If we want to argue that the poor boy’s brain is still developing and we need to take that into account, then what about her developing brain? What about her sense of self worth that’s being so violently malformed, first by her assailant, and then by the crowds of people saying he’s normal and she’s a lying, scheming, whore? Or the argument that boys are hormonal volcanoes just boiling over with sex, and this is how they learn, you see. They learn from their mistakes, and they get to move on, don’t you see. So I wonder how many girls they get to learn on. Do they get one rape freebie, and then after that, they’re responsible for knowing that rape is bad? Or do they get one attempted rape per year, as long as they learn a little bit more each time? I have eight daughters. How many of my daughters is it okay for a seventeen-year-old boy to try to rape, as long as it’s part of their learning process, and they have a bright future? Girls . . . are human. Girls are not there for the benefit of helping boys to turn into men.

They are not there to be soiled and then tossed on the heap while boys go out and buy themselves a whole new look, a whole new life. If you don’t want men to be dragged down by decades-old accusations of rape, then you need to crack down on minutes-old accusations of rape as they happen. But that’s not how it goes. Still, even now, that’s not how it goes. When a woman says, “This man raped me a long time ago,” we say, “But that was in the past. He can’t change the past.” When a girl says, “This boy raped me last night,” we say, “But his future! We can’t wreck his future.” And there she stands, suspended between his past and his future, with no value of her own except for how much she’s worth to whichever political party is feeling desperate today. There are some acts which are so abhorrent, they cannot simply be forgotten. I have sons, as well as daughters. They’re not yet seventeen, and yet they know you’re not supposed to get drunk, and if you do get drunk, you’re still not supposed to rape anybody, not even a little bit. They know this. Seventeen is not a child. If, at that age, you have a son who’s still unclear on the whole “Don’t get drunk and sexually savage girls,” thing, then he should be involuntarily committed.

There’s no grey area where he gets to sacrifice a few girls while he figgers it out. Because that’s not what girls are for. Girls are human. But when grown men tell teenage boys that a smattering of attempted rape is normal, expected, excusable behavior; that all boys do something like this because they’re still developing; and that it’s not worth worrying about because it was so long ago, then this is what they’re doing: they’re educating a whole new generation in the uses and abuses of the bodies and psyches of girls and women, for the sake of men, who alone are real.

But that’s out of my hands. What I’m talking about here is how we talk about boys, and how we talk about girls, and how we talk about rape. What’s in our control is to guard ourselves, to change how we respond to stories of rape. To be consistent and humane whether it’s our guy on the witness stand or not. Because if it’s not our guy this time, it will be next time, depend on it. Hell yes, an attempted rape accusation matters. Even a very old one. Even though it was just a girl.

Think. Think about what you’re implying when you are willing to wave away accusations of attempted rape. Think about what you’re telling girls about what they’re for. Think about what you’re telling boys about what they’re for. Think about what you’re telling victims about what they’re worth. Think about how you’re talking about these things. Think about who is listening. He says he didn’t do it. I hope his party has the integrity to at least try to find out, because if they say “it’s important” but then appoint him without an investigation, they don’t really think it’s important.

Survivor Support: NATIONALLY: RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) NATIONAL SEXUAL ASSAULT HOTLINE 1-800-656-4673 ON CAMPUS: S.A.R.A.H (Sexual Assault and Rape Anonymous Hotline) 314-935-8080 UNCLE JOEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S PEER COUNSELING 314-935-5099 RSVP CENTER (Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Center) 314-935-3445

This book includes the typefaces Sharp Grotesk, Lyon Text, Franklin Gothic and Calling Code. Sharp Grotesk was designed by Lucas Sharp in 2016. Lyon Text was designed by Kai Bernau in 2009. Franklin Gothic was designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1902. Calling code was designed by Ryoichi Tsunekawa in 2005. Images by Evy Mages, Win McNamee, Eric Thayer and Erin Schaff.

Eve Wallack Communication Design, Fall 2018 Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts Washington University in St. Louis.