Ford Supporters, Academic View Plight As 'Teachable' Moment

PALO ALTO, CA -- It’s not over yet. That’s the message on local stakeholders of the U.S. Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh want to shout off the rooftops regarding an issue that has captivated a culture.

As all was quiet at Palo Alto University psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford’s house, her hometown supporters have been out in full force to ensure the woman who energized a movement of sexual abuse survivors knows she’s supported, heard and believed.

After the Palo Alto woman provided riveting testimony of her alleged assault, many others have come forward to declare their personal accounts. Meanwhile, the nomination hangs in the balance, with the test vote Friday riding along party lines 51 to 49 in favor of the Republican leadership forging ahead.

The final U.S. Senate full-floor vote is due Saturday on the nominee accused by Ford of sexual assault decades ago. The judge lying in wait has denied the allegations, but that hasn’t stopped a firestorm of turmoil in the streets.

Whatever the outcome, this watershed moment in American politics and the socialization of how boys treat girls is the takeaway in all this, according to protest co-organizer Kristen Podulka and San Jose State University sociology professor Elizabeth Sweet.

“No matter what happens, this is not ending tomorrow. The movement is not going away. This is a key moment,” Ford’s neighbor Podulka said after gathering with about 200 of her fellow Ford supporters in the Town and Country Center in Palo Alto. The center located on El Camino Real was selected for its “high visibility." Motorists awarded the protesters with honking horns at the gathering of moms, dads and children.

Podulka walks by Ford’s house every day and thinks of her emotional plight often. On the political front, she has been channeling late Sen. John McCain, who as a Republican voted for the health care reform bill to replace the Affordable Care Act in the test vote only to give it a thumbs-down on the final tally.

“It began with Hillary Clinton. When she ran, we saw the door opening for a woman president. Then, it was slammed in our faces. Sure, (this) is a pivotal lifetime appointment, but we have the mid-terms, then 2020,” Podulka said.

Moreover, the point can be made that the women and their male supporters are making a dramatic, society-altering impact on the future. They refuse to be silent – a common shame-based aftermath of sexual assault. Future generations are watching, listening and paying attention.

Is this a teaching moment in society?

The socialization of boys may be at play here.

Granted, Kavanaugh has stated fiercely that the assault never happened. Still, parents and sociologists have noticed through the years the connection between how the socialization of “boys will be boys” has affected their interaction with girls.

Podulka has sat down to discuss the matter with her elementary school-age youngsters, a boy and a girl, to “teach consent” because “it starts young,” she insisted.

Then, there was a pivotal time on her daughter’s schoolyard a year ago. The boys played a game to see how many “girls' butts they could smack.” The incident got back to the principal, who immediately called the girls’ parents and went into every classroom to inform the students the game was an unacceptable practice.

Sure, boys grow up to be innately assertive and strong. And yes, girls reach adulthood with socialized norms of being nurturing and caring.

But is there not a boundary if it involves another’s space and livelihood? Plus, doesn’t understanding the other gender lead to better interpersonal relationships?

And who put a label on children’s toys? Podulka has noticed it’s difficult to find dinosaurs lately in the girls’ toy section of a store.

“How are cars assigned to boys? Women drive cars,” she said, lamenting over gender-specific toy labels. “No one’s ever bought my daughter a Matchbox car (for her birthday parties),” she said.

Sweet, a SJSU sociology professor who studies that very subject, claims there’s a reason for that.

Essentially, toys are marketed by political and cultural waves of the time.

At age 45, Sweet told Patch she doesn’t recall such “hyper-gender” specific toys available now than when she was growing up. The academic even used Sears catalogs for her research.

“These toys are a reflection of what’s happening in society,” she said.

The “gender revolution” of the 1980s that brought many women into male-dominated fields was stalled. Think “Working Girl.” But later, we had the opposition to that -- Robert De Niro’s famous line introducing his son-in-law in “Meet the Parents": “Focker here is a male nurse.”

Sweet snickered and plainly understood the reference.

“Men didn’t move (into women’s fields). They went about gender changes and challenges very differently,” she said.

Sweet contends the rigid code of masculinity starts early – even in respect to fun and games.

“It’s accentuated by our gender expectations of society. Our society pairs men as rugged individuals. Even men who hold progressive ideals about the traits of males and females may be sanctioned along with women,” she said.

Today, the separate socialization norms are on steroids.

“(U.S. President) Trump opened the door for people to be overtly sexist,” she said.

Where do we go from here?

A saving grace may be a new, young generation of those who reject the regressive traditional roles, Sweet cites.

“These young people see a gender spectrum opposed to a strict binary (norm). They’re the ones who will be voting. They’re the ones who will be in power,” she said. “Things look bleak if you look at the power displayed in the Kavanaugh hearing, but there’s a huge segment of the population who don’t endorse the views of the Republican Senate leadership.”

In other words, Washington, D.C. is but a microcosm of our society, although it represents the power structure for now.

“I’m an optimist. Sometimes it’s just hard to feel that way,” she said.

Podulka’s daughter’s principal teaches in a different school district now and said he witnesses the lightbulbs occasionally coming on with the students he’s in charge of.

Change may be slow in coming, but it always comes.

“Absolutely, this is a teachable moment,” Grant Althouse said, noting today’s political climate with the playground incident from a year ago. “I remember that incident very well,” he said, adding a few boys got their rear ends slapped as well.

“Kids look to other kids for what is acceptable play, so I felt it was an important time to talk about what is acceptable,” Althouse said.

He told them people respond differently when their private parts are touched, although the boys playing the game thought they were just playing with friends.

“I think it’s critical they have that message loud and clear,” he said.

Images via Annika Lehes; Sue Wood, Patch; David Schmitz