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‘She Has A Lot of Baggage’
The language-based microaggressions that keep women silent
After disappearing from the news cycle for a stretch, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford posted a thank-you message on her GoFundMe page last week. She detailed the way she’s used donated funds to help protect her family and what she’s planning to do with any remaining funds once the security measures are no longer needed. I felt touched to read her message and always welcome her brave voice. At the same time, though, seeing her again expending energy around this painful topic and being reminded of how it has affected her and her family… Well, I felt the rage pouring back in.
In the wake of the Kavanaugh hearing, many of us felt extremely triggered. Not only were we reliving our own past horrors, some of us were coming to terms with experiences we’d stuffed so far down that only now are we recognizing them as instances of sexual harassment and assault.
As some of my own long-repressed—or more accurately, stored-in-the-vault-in-a-way-that-wasn’t-labeled-abuse-or-assault-so-I-could-function-each-day—memories started to surface, I have felt extremely grateful for outside voices that put into words the way I was feeling. Lady Gaga explained on Stephen Colbert’s show how trauma and memory works. Charles Blow spoke on Cuomo Prime Time about his own experience of…
