White Hot Rage

Trigger Warning

This is a warning to every man in power who says, casually, that he doesn’t care.

This is a warning to every woman in power who even once questions the motives of Christine Blasey Ford.

You are walking in dangerous territory. Very dangerous.

Most women have experienced some level of sexual harassment at some point in our lives. Most of us understand, in our very bones, why she didn’t attempt to press charges. Why she didn’t make a public proclamation. Why she didn’t even tell her parents, all those years ago. And we understand that she never wanted to be in this position.

We clench our teeth every time we hear “boys will be boys,” as innumerable memories of boys and men behaving badly steamroll their way through our brains.

And we are having, albeit quiet, violent angry thoughts.

That’s the truth.

My husband caught me muttering in the kitchen this morning.

Under my breath I was reimagining the night I saw the man who assaulted me when I was a child at a local bar, thirteen years after he had put his grown man hands on me. When he smiled at me as if we were old friends, I imagined smashing my pint glass against the closest hard surface and driving a jagged shard of it into his neck.

In real life, I just looked away, trying to pretend I hadn’t seen him and hoping the rising panic that came bursting into every cell in my body didn’t give me away.

I explained to the person I was with what he had done and we left before I got myself arrested.

Why has hearing Christine Blasey’s story and subsequent treatment by people in power sent me to such an ugly violent place?

I feel powerless. I rarely feel powerless. But right now, I do.

As a reasonably well-educated white woman from the suburbs, I don’t often have the constant oppression that comes with being born a woman thrown in my face. I can vote, I can go to school, I can get a job, I can have children, and I generally don’t feel like my gender is a great disadvantage. But right now, I do. And it’s more than a feeling, it’s a fact, and it’s being counted on and celebrated by men in power who are dead-set on keeping me and generations of women after me “in our place.” So they can continue to do all the things that fall under the “boys will be boys” umbrella, and worse.

And it pisses me off. It pisses me off for me, for my mother and her mother before her, for my friends and my sisters, and, perhaps most painfully, for my daughter. I look at her and see how far we’ve come, then I look at the news and see how far we haven’t.

My attacker did not rape me.

I wasn’t even sure, at the time, that what he had done was wrong. See, I was 13 and he was a person my family trusted. Sometimes, when “boys are being boys” they are also being a dentist. A grown-up. A person children are taught to trust and obey.

I have to be vague.

I’m sorry about that. I wish I could scream all this and more from every rooftop in town, but the law protects this man who was supposed to protect me, and I’m not at liberty to share his name and address and let karma take care of the rest.

Here’s what I CAN share:

My mother was at work, I was in his office, and suddenly we were the only two people in the room. No hygienist, no receptionist, just me, a thirteen year old girl, and her dentist. I, of course, had no reason to think there was anything off with the situation. Within moments of starting the exam, he was rubbing up and down on me. I was uncomfortable, but…who likes going to the dentist? I thought it was just part of the appointment. Then he started telling me that I was beautiful. He called me Cinderella. It seemed weird, especially when he started moaning. His eyes were unfocused, almost lost, like he wasn’t even in the same room with me, despite me being all too aware of his hands on my body.

And then, quite suddenly, a woman was saying hello and peeking her head around from the waiting room. She had some kind of dental emergency and walked in without an appointment.

I know, now, that she immediately knew something was up. Innumerable memories of boys and men behaving badly must have flooded HER senses, because suddenly she was asking him why he was alone with me. He was breaking a policy I hadn’t known about — and even if I HAD known, how many thirteen year old girls would have said something, questioned the behavior of A GROWN UP DENTIST?

He snapped back to reality, away from the far away place that had made him moan.

He tried to send her away.

She refused.

If you are this woman, who stood her ground to protect a child, I cannot thank you enough. You didn’t leave because you could feel, in your bones, that something was wrong, and you were right.

If you are ANY WOMEN, who stood her ground and angered ANY MAN in order to protect ANY OTHER WOMAN OR CHILD, I cannot thank you enough, either.

The dentist finished the appointment professionally enough, I guess. At least there was no more rubbing or moaning. He gave me a poster of a parrot to hang on my bedroom wall, as a special gift for being such a “good patient.”

I hid it in the back of my closet.

Two years later, two local women came forward with their own “Cinderella” stories, looking for other victims who could attest to the behavior and character of the dentist.

I was fifteen and no longer confused about what had happened to me that day.

I told them, and anyone who asked, the truth.

In the process I found out he’d raped an 18 year-old, after purposefully getting her very drunk. She had been afraid to tell anyone. She had known, in her bones, how people would judge her, how they would dismiss her suffering because she had been intoxicated. The other two women weren’t afraid to tell their stories, but one was struggling with serious emotional problems and addiction. She knew, in her bones, that those issues would make it easy for people to dismiss her claims, and unlikely to care much about her suffering. They needed something more to prove the civil case they were waging, and I was just the girl.

Suddenly, everything began to make sense. He mentioned in a visit, that he knew one of my teachers from his college days. He asked me to tell her hello. When I did she said she hoped he rotted in hell. She wouldn’t say anything further. But her rage was visible. Just like my rage now. I agreed to give a deposition and was interviewed by a male police officer in the police station. The act of retelling what happened was in itself traumatic. I was only 15 and still very uncomfortable with my body and discussing it in a sexual way. I thought he’d at least be investigated criminally. But he wasn’t. Instead, he settled out of court and a gag order was placed on everyone involved. Why? Because his career is more important than a 13 year-old and all the future 13 year-olds he potentially attacked after me. His career is more important than our emotional well being and physical safety. His career is more important than my innocence and more than all the other girls I am 100% certain he assaulted before and after. My value in the world, is less than his ability to make money. I’m just a girl.

I’m furious with myself for adhering to the order. I believe my willingness to heed the judge has likely resulted in more victims and I feel complicit. I might as well be helping him assault women. That I’ve stepped into line with the oppression that makes me so angry. When Christine Blasey Ford finally told the truth, I admired her bravery. No woman looking to just get someone, just be an operative for party politics would put herself through this. I don’t want to and we aren’t even talking about the Supreme Court. I’ve been sitting around thinking of what I can do since Christine Blasey Ford came forward. How can I get the truth out? How can I protect other people from him? I can’t. I’m powerless. And that sends me into a rage. The kind of rage that has me imagining a horrible vigilante justice where everyone loses. Just putting this out there, for anyone from Saline Michigan, if this situation sounds familiar in anyway, contact me. I am afraid to go alone, but I will be the voice for all of us. I know there are more. He’s a predator and they don’t change, especially when the system continues to protect them. I’m waiting for the rest of Kavanaugh’s victims to speak. Hand over the mouth isn’t harmless boy stuff. It’s predatory behavior. It’s not a bra snap you might think is a joke in middle school, not an accidental brush that was misconstrued, it’s attempting to quiet a scream you’re sure you’re violation will create. His intentions were clear. But, let’s not care because his career is worth more than a 15 year-old girl’s innocence. Those of you in power saying you don’t care about her testimony? You’re on notice. Women are white hot raging mad. You need to start caring.

I’ve taken all my feelings and worked on a local campaign. I’m powerless right now. But I can do something to change that, if not for me, for my daughter. So I knocked on doors and spent my weekend writing postcards to potential voters. I can’t change what is happening to Christine Blasey Ford, I can’t change the opinion of the old white men in power now, but I sure can fight to put better people in charge. My violence is being redirected in a healthy way. I’m not sitting back and accepting this powerless feeling and neither are any of the women I know. We’re mad and you’re on notice. If you don’t believe us, your services are no longer needed. If you continue to protect those who harm us and value careers over women, you’re services are no longer needed. The best part of campaigning this weekend? Meeting the candidate and her confessing to me, how much rage she has over it too. This means when she gets elected, she’s not going to sit back and watch it happen to another woman. She won’t have the ability to determine the Supreme Court, but she will be in a position of power. And, ladies, that’s what we need if we want this to stop. Take your rage and make something come of it. Don’t let this keep happening to women. Vote these disgusting old pigs out of office and protect our daughters.