Extraordinarily competent but also modest, polite, and visibly nervous in the face of male authority: Dr Ford was a palatable vision of being a woman
Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee was emotional. Her voice cracked, and more than once she seemed to be holding back tears. Wearing a blue suit, as Anita Hill did when she testified before that same committee in 1991 – before three of the same male Republican senators – her eyes were magnified by a pair of large glasses. She looked terrified even before she said she was.
In a tellingly feminine posture, she seemed eager to accommodate and to please, even before the Republican senators whose objective at the hearing was to discredit her. She repeatedly stated that she wanted to be helpful, offered to do whatever would be helpful, expressed wishes that she could be more helpful. She repeatedly apologized for not being able to provide pieces of information to the committee – information that often could have been provided by Mark Judge, or any of the other witnesses that Republicans refuse to allow to testify. At the beginning of the hearing, in an apparent attempt to ease the mood, she made a small joke about needing a cup of coffee. She laughed nervously when Senator Grassley, the Republican chair of the committee, replied that no one made his coffee right.
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