A letter to Christine Blasey Ford on the anniversary of her testimony

Friday, September 27, is the one-year anniversary of Christine Blasey Ford’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, in which she testified that then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh had attacked her when they were both high school students.

Dear Dr. Ford,

One year ago I watched you testify. Filled with anger and awe, and raw with the recognition of shared experiences, I sat down at the computer, cried, and wrote:

She expected to have a beer and be safe. 
He expected to be unaccountable.
Neither got what they wanted.

Women learn to modify our expectations and rise to others’
Watching Dr. Ford, who didn’t want to be here
But agreed to be terrified because … Duty.

Her fear is real. But her tone is perfect.
Because it has to be.
“I wish I could be more helpful,” she says.

She lost two years in college.
The ability to not always think about the exits
Her anonymity

She brings a lie detector test.
And medical knowledge
and offers to do more
If they’d only investigate.

“I wish I could be more helpful,” she says.
To the men who’ve just called her a liar
To the prosecutor wanting to know who paid for her polygraph

As if lawyers and lie detectors are some great indulgence
Rather than another human sacrifice we women are so used to making

And we wish we could be more helpful…

To the brave woman sitting alone
in front of a panel charged with advice and consent
But incapable of talking to someone who didn’t

To our friends who come forward for the first time
And the sisterhood of tweets
and posts and emotional eating
And the reassuring and maddening reality laid bare

We are not safe. Not in high school.
Not in college. Not from assault.
And not when we come forward.

And still.
We wish we could be more helpful.

Meanwhile, the Judge is angry.
He was top of his class.
He has women friends.
He knows what Title IX is.
He got into Yale Law School.
He played basketball.
He wouldn’t party on weekdays.
He wants the truth.

Just not an investigation...

And the Republican Senators 
Feel ambushed
And outraged
And sorry.
They look one witness in the eyes and apologize for the inconvenience and injustice endured.
Not her.
Him.

They talk about weeks lost as if it’s an abomination
As we face down a lifetime of rulings
From a man credibly accused of sexual assault

And so, we women watch
as reliving sexual assault is equated with not getting a promotion.

We know both experiences well.
They aren’t close to the same.

We wish we could be more helpful.

On this one-year anniversary, I write to thank you for being more helpful than I suspect you will ever fully internalize. Your example, your courage changed my life.

Before your testimony, I was good at taking on global fights. I’d helped lead government efforts to fight human trafficking, run for Congress, and reformed the world’s largest supply chain in service of human rights. Still, figuring out how to stand up for myself — 40 years in — felt a lot more elusive. I stupidly believed that because of my own privilege as a white and rich woman that if I asked for the right things, at the right time, with the right tone, I could get them.

Watching you testify, and then him, and how it was handled laid that absurdity bare. I no longer negotiate with myself and wonder when my asks fall through if it was because I was too arrogant. Now I ask whether the other person also had to compromise. I have become an enforcer for myself — from manspreading on the metro to bullying in my office. And I talk to my friends. Each of us, in ways big and small, was radicalized by your courage to take up space, demand accountability, and build a safer world.

Those day-to-day, society-altering insurgencies are your legacy. 

I know you still hear his laughter. I know you will forever be mindful of doors and exits and the freedom and safety that represents. And, I want you to know that your courage gave way to another kind of laughter and a deeper freedom.

I hope that, in time, you can hear my daughter’s laughter born out of growing up in a world bettered by your example. I hope you can come to see doors as not just an escape path, but a physical reminder of your legacy—one that created more options for all of us. I hope you know just how helpful you have been.