We’ll get back to it in a minute, but for now I’d like you to put aside all thought of the recent Supreme Court agitation and participate in a little thought experiment. It is intended for everyone—male and female, Democrat and Republican, conservative and progressive. It will take only a few minutes and doesn’t even have to be written down, though you might want to. The results might surprise you.
First, think back over your entire life and the people you have actually, personally known. List the names of every man you can think of who has paid an actual price as the result of accusations of sexual assault or abuse, proven or not. I mean a real price, like prison time, a court judgment, a financial penalty. Loss of career counts, loss of job or reputation doesn’t. Write down every single name.
Now, write a list of every single woman you’ve known who has been accosted, assaulted, insulted, harassed, groped, mauled, or had vulgarities hurled at her or whispered in her ear by strangers. If you’re female, this might not be too hard a task. Your list might be long. If you’re male, you might want to think twice about how many women you’ve actually had this sort of conversation with over the years before you consider your list complete.
You see, most of us don’t talk about it readily. In the whirlwind of the Kavanaugh hearings, I heard many men express their surprise when their own wives and daughters offered up tales of their personal experiences, many of them held secret for years. Men just don’t know.
And they shouldn’t ask, not unless the relationship is really intimate or heading in that direction. This is not a conversation for a man to strike up lightly with a coworker or the lady on the bus. Women carry deep wounds, and their reactions are unpredictable. They may freeze, break into tears, fly into a rage, or call the cops on you. I’m just telling it like it is. Beware. Just don’t assume that the answer is no if the question has never been explored.
Once you have your two lists, consider the difference in their respective lengths. Consider that most women don’t tell. Consider that most don’t lie. Then consider the logical conclusion: that virtually no woman ever gets to experience a moment of justice, not even the simplest validation of her pain. We carry that burden all the days of our lives.
So here are my questions, Senator Collins. If you believe women are telling the truth and their awful experience was real, but men are innocent, then who, exactly, is doing all this assaulting? Who is this faceless, passive “someone” who is really to blame? How have we, as a society, decided that since all men aren’t guilty, then none of them are? And while it might be cynical but easy to understand why any man would be comfortable with such a conclusion, why are there always complicit women like yourself who will smile at their sisters while cutting them down?
I’ve known one man who went to prison, Senator. One. How about you?