The past couple of weeks have been kind of a shit show, right?! Following the news and social media has been overwhelming. I don’t know that I have felt more targeted as a woman than during the Kavanaugh hearings. And I don’t even live in the US!

Equal Rights, Equal Respect

Hearing Dr. Christine Blasey Ford speak during the hearings though was also one of the most heartening events I’ve ever witnessed as a woman. All the good words apply to her: brave, courageous, strong, respectful.

I couldn’t help but think of Belva Lockwood throughout Ford’s testimony. Lockwood was the first woman to run for President of the United States back in 1884 and 1888. She ran at a time when she herself could not vote in any election (being a woman and all).

In 1879 she was also the first woman admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. This came after years of struggling to get her place in the courtroom. Years after the Maryland bar denied her admittance based on the argument that God deemed women were not equal to men and therefore had not right to speak in court.

No right to speak because she was a woman.

This is how I felt during these hearings, that although Ford was sitting in front of the committee she was really sitting in front of a defacto SCOTUS. One defined by old white men who had already decided that yes, she could speak but that, being a woman, it didn’t really matter. They were not going to hear what she had to say.

No right to be heard because she is a woman.

Not hearing women’s voices is where we are at now – still.

So let’s heed Lockwood’s words and keep forcing our voices into the silences others wish to impose on us.

We have the right to speak, and we have the right to be heard.