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They did it. The Republicans on the Judiciary Committee did what a Democrat had called the "unthinkable" when they voted for articles of impeachment. But what "unthinkable" means for some usually means something else to others as it was in plain view during the Judiciary Hearings. To the Democrats, the unthinkable appeared to be a situation in which a president could be in dire straits because of shenanigans perpetrated in a civil rights suit brought forth by a woman, of all people, who had not even been physically reduced to a pulp, nor sent to a mental institution because of acts committed by the person she accused. Where was the damage they asked with disdain? Where was the violation of the law? And what law in the first place? Was it not just about sex? Is there a law against sex? Did the Right Wing pass a law against sex while we were having sex?
For the Republicans, the unthinkable was clearly a situation when a president could have engaged in shenanigans in a civil rights suit so obvious that only the blindfolded could have failed to notice, regardless of who brought the suit.
For me, an ordinary feminist, the fact that the hearings were taking place at all was the unthinkable because they were about women and laws specific to us. This was an unprecedented milestone.
That, in itself, made the Judiciary Committee hearings a majestic event. The words of Abigail Adams came to mind. "Remember the Ladies," she had written to her husband John in 1776, urging him not to forget to include women in the Declaration he was carving and to be "more generous and favorable to them [the Ladies] than your ancestors". The very busy Mr. Adams took time to read the letter nevertheless and had a good laugh. He replied promptly, admitted he had had a good laugh indeed and asked if she thought he and the drafters were nuts. Actually, people did not speak that way yet, therefore Mr. Adams expressed the same thought with the verbal elegance of the time: "We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems," adding that it was out of the question [that] he and his friends be subjected to the "Despotism of the Petticoat".
While the cameras zoomed on the unisex antics of the Committee Democrats, a few television commentators half-heartily reflected how future generations would view the Hearings, but none reflected upon the long way we have come since Mrs. Adams wrote her desperate and ineffective letter, to the point when perceived violations of a woman's legal right to seek redress, and their logical sequels, were taken so seriously that the most powerful man in the country, arguably in the world, was on the verge of ruin, his name forever tainted. For the proverbial elephant was in the solemn room, asking: "As guardians of the law, are we ready to uphold women's civil rights at the risk of Executive demise.?" One political party said "heck no". The other said "yes," uneasily at first because it had never been terribly fond of sexual harassment law, but said yes notwithstanding. The equality under the law so many had worked for so long to attain had finally arrived. One would think the feminist sisterhood would have noticed.
For the new concept called sexual harassment had been legally recognized by the Supreme Court in 1986 as one more form of discrimination against women to add to the Civil Rights of 1964. In doing so, a government recognized that its women had the legal right to work in an atmosphere reasonably free of pornography and prostitution and ought to be rewarded for their intelligence and accomplishments. In elevating women to such a level, the High Court terminated centuries of male privilege, knowingly shaking society to its foundations and the political class even more. In American democracy, no one is above the law. But it was contempt for the rule of law, for sexual harassment law and therefore for women themselves that fueled the months of lying, ridiculing, trivializing, and terrorizing those who exercised their constitutional rights. It was fawned through a great portion of the media, applauded and assisted by the feminists, a group hopelessly lost in the demented tantrums peddled for too long as progressive policies.
In a final convulsion of sexist ire, contempt even turned trusting women against their own interest and against the rule of law. But contempt went too far. A group of men finally stepped forward to stop the deadly attacks on our rights, since we could not do it ourselves. To be sure, the Republicans sitting on the Committee may have been impelled to draw the line in the sand because of an accumulation of unrelated frustrations of a political nature, but the issue at hand was the rule of law pure and simple, the most revolutionary tool men ever gave women to compete on their own merit, sexual harassment legislation.
How could not one urge the stately Chairman Henry Hyde to "Remember the Ladies" even if it was from across a television screen miles away. And would you believe Mr. Hyde remembered? In an atmosphere poisoned by propagandists, women have cynically been encouraged to mock the landmark days in December instead of encouraged to feel the awe, respect and pride, after 200 years of organized struggle. On December 19, 1998, the House of Representatives voted for two articles of impeachment. The wild run of contempt came to a crashing halt against the steely resolve of the Republican Party and the five remaining honest men among the Democrats.
Their historic decision will affect generations to come, mostly women and girls, for it ensures that never again such derision of us will ever take place. Millions watched that unique day, including the millions of women around the world who still have not a clue about the meaning of it all. Abigail Adams would have loved the "unthinkable". Husband John? Well… |