Outraged white males
It’s the 29th of September and I am literally in the air; however, 40,000 feet brings no perspective after a week distantly observing events in Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing this week. I’m not sure why the Washington circus upset me so profoundly: after all, we’ve had our own show trials in Australia recently, with the absurd but inevitable decapitation of the moderate Liberals by the looney right, and the outrageous dismissal of an ABC Managing Director (predictably a woman) by a politicised Chair of the national and independent broadcaster. But Kavanaugh’s reaction to Ford’s testimony seemed to me to crystallise a moment, where the old white males (and I suppose that’s me!) suddenly realised that power was a slippery fish that might escape them.
I’m positive that my own sensitivity to the abuse of gender and sexual power has been heightened by the revelations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse – the fact that I can remember its full title means that it is indelibly burned into my memory. What was always going to be more distressing than the actions of institutional pedophiles and the suffering of the victims was the response of those predominantly white men who ran the institutions and went out of their way to protect the organisation at the expense of the individual. It seems to me to be a more insidious evil than the sexual sickness itself – maleness gone bad is not sexual perversion but indifference, conspiratorial deceit, insensitivity and a determination to protect the tribe. I’m not convinced that the purge has gone deep enough in my own Church, and I suspect that may have hardly started.
Against this background, the events before the Judiciary Committee take on a starker relief for me. Ford’s vulnerability, the tacit acknowledgement by the Republicans that no male could interrogate her and retain any credibility, the desperate card trick of importing a female prosecutor to save political capital, Kavanaugh’s bluster and outrage that any woman dare attack his carefully-groomed conservative and moralistic credentials: all had a sense of unreality and almost dark comedy. The nominee forced to into admitting (?) that he hadn’t had sex until “much later” seemed more to suggest a lack of opportunity rather than an over-developed sexual morality.
What remains astonishing is that anyone from Mitch McConnell down, would have thought Kavanaugh the best option in the judicial conservative poster boy competition. The sheer number of complaints and anecdotes of drunkenness and boorish behaviour would have surely been know to any reasonable due diligence? So why run the risk of nominating him, when the outcome was a petulant, outraged white male directing his bile at women and the left? A smart politician in the wake of #MeToo would have nominated a conservative woman with impeccable judicial credentials. Perhaps the rust-belt base likes the look of a born-to-rule ivy-leaguer venting his frustration at the denial of the divine Right?
Perhaps it will play well with the GOP and its Trumpian base, but maybe all it will do is further alienate urban women, minorities and anyone who now questions whether Kavanaugh’s intemperate responses and aggression make him totally unsuitable for any judicial role. But here’s the thing: anyone my age with male equipment grew up with a sense that the world was shifting on its foundations; and those of us with sense managed to adapt to the changes in acceptance of gender, sexual preference, class entitlement, the lot. Kavanaugh just represents a group of powerful people who refuse to give up its entitlements even in the face of egregious immorality, inequality of opportunity and basic decency. This week, in both the US and in Australia, we’ve seen that far to0 many in high positions are prepared to keep silent and let the dirty work play on. One thing is for certain: Justin Milne would never have treated a male managing director in the way he treated Michelle Guthrie.
