Let’s face it. Sexual aggression is no disqualifier for a leadership job.
Matt Gaetz went down, yes. But there are plenty behind him who’ll sail through. Along with the guy who chose them.
This moment has been called a shifting of norms. But isn’t it more a matter of making norms visible?
Consider the norm of sexual assault. I say norm, because the statistics on its frequency and prevalence are depressingly stubborn. And still most rapes are never reported, because people are afraid to speak out. And those who do report may well find that no one looks at the evidence.
So rape remains a hidden crime, its prevalence difficult to distinguish from acceptance.
Of course, it’s not rape itself that all of Trump’s sexually transgressive nominees are accused (or convicted) of. The severity of their alleged wrongdoing varies, from sexual assault to groping to harassment to creating a hostile workplace. All these forms are commonplace. They are deeply woven into our social fabric. We may call them unacceptable, but the facts don’t back us up.
To think that such behavior would be a clear deal-killer for a cabinet nominee ignores the record. Consider the highest court in the land. Anyone who heard the testimony of Anita Hill or Christine Blasey Ford, anyone who saw Clarence Thomas’s holier-than-thou evasions or the self-pitying righteousness of Brett Kavanaugh, must have felt, deep down, that these women were telling the truth. But truth wasn’t the issue. Here was the issue: Should these women be allowed to rob these powerful men of what they so ardently sought, when they’d only done what so many other men have done? Didn’t we all know that powerful men made lurid overtures to the pretty girls who worked for them? That teenaged boys chugged beer and “fooled around?”
The recent cries of “your body, my choice” have been awful to hear. But the truth of that presumption is threaded throughout our society. We shouldn’t kid ourselves that it’s not allowed into the halls of power. It may be expressed less crudely there. But the effects can be devastating.
