Roughly two years ago, HBO broadcast Confirmation, a film based on the events surrounding the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination hearings, and the controversy which ensued when Anita Hill alleged sexual misconduct on Thomas’s part. That event is considered a watershed moment for women’s rights and the issue of sexual harassment. Around the time of Confirmation’s release many media pieces were written about “how far we’ve come” in taking the concerns of women more seriously. Even the review I wrote for the film talks a lot about how things had changed, and how much the culture had moved over the past quarter-century.
I was wrong. We haven’t learned a goddamn thing.
In fact, I can put forward a pretty good argument things are worse in how seriously the powers that be will take the claims of women. How else can one describe a process where less that 24 hours after an alleged victim testifies before a government committee, the people in charge push forward with no investigation or real consideration of consequences, and had already made up their minds to not give a shit a week ago.
THEY. JUST. DON’T. CARE.
They don’t care about truth. They don’t care about even the appearance of a fair process. All they care about is the expression of power and the fulfillment of their goals, all other considerations be damned … just like an abusive asshole. And, to me, the most galling thing about this is not the awful people confirming how awful they are. There have always been assholes, probably always will be, and we expect the worst from them. What is the most sickening are the people who should know better and who hold their tongues, ignore reality, or rationalize things as “not being so bad” in order to not do anything at all. When Dr. Ford was at that party (and I believe she was at that party), there were others who saw what happened and knew it was wrong. They knew it was wrong but were too chicken shit to do anything about it.
We, as a nation, have the same choice as the people who were there at that party. And we’re blowing it. We’re showing how much we give a damn, and it’s not that much. All of this has me thinking about the way we discuss and consume sex as a culture, how it plays into what we think about consent, and how those issues permeate out to affect other aspects of life.
As a society, most of sexuality is viewed through the prism of a male gaze. And, as such, we prioritize male needs as the default, and anything beyond that becomes … special. But those needs are always prioritized. And this tendency was in full display yesterday.
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