The current brouhaha in Washington, to my way of thinking, is something of a distraction from a deeper, more profound drama that is playing out across the nation. These hearings have served as a kind of seed crystal around which a writhing spirit is rapidly coalescing into physical being. And it ain’t pretty.
There are accounts of all kinds of organizations being overwhelmed with phone calls from women telling tales of abuse and harassment. Torrents of them. Women are calling their representatives, their TV stations and newspaper reporters, hotlines and help lines all over the country. They are talking, crying, marching, and registering to vote. Turn off the sound for a minute and look at the faces, the throngs, the outpourings of emotion.
I see a sort of female beast, comprising all of us scarred sisters and mutilated mothers, arising from the masses and howling in pain. She thrusts out her arms, cries out in agony, spills her tales of woe. She is wounded, and her deepest gashes never heal but follow her through all her days. She cries out for validation. She cries out for justice. She cries out to be heard.
If the embodied national male beast does as he has always done—that is to say if he dismisses her pleas outright or pretends to listen and nod, then pats her on the head and tells her to never mind and let us get on with business—then a true crisis may erupt. This society might well rip right in two, but not along partisan lines. And it will have nothing to do with a judge, but a lack of justice.
Too many women are crying out that we are not being heard. And too many men are still not listening. What will it take? And where will it end?