Today I watched the entire Judiciary Committee Hearing with Dr. Blasy Ford and Judge Kavanaugh. Hands down, Judge Kav was belligerent and disrespectful to his questioners. He actually evaded answering several questions (even though they were asked several times by different people) and often seemed distracted and disconnected. I did not see an ounce of humility. His body language was not at all dignified as one might expect of a Supreme Court judge. Definitely not a candidate for the Supreme Court based on what I saw of his behavior and demeanor.

Setting that aside, the one thing that makes me question his denial of sexual assault is the one thing we probably won’t hear anyone talk about. It was a simple thing he pointed out in his opening statement, something that may seem on the surface to be irrelevant but in truth will resonate with many women.

During the opening statement, Kav listed the names of Catholic schools of his peer group. “All my friends went to…”  insert names like Sacred Heart, St. Patrick’s, etc. He listed at least 4 Catholic schools his inner circle attended. He then pointed out that Dr. Blasy Ford went to another school, clearly not a Catholic School. Also, the house where the assault supposedly happened, Kav said, was not even in his regular neighborhood.

Why is this important to me? Based on my experiences in high school, the boys who went to the Catholic school a few blocks from my house would never lay a hand on the good girls in their schools. The good girls would tell the nuns who would tell their parents, who in turn would make life difficult for the naughty boys. Instead, the boys would walk over to our neighborhood and hang out with the girls from the non-Catholic high schools. Like me. We were more fun and certainly freer. We would kiss them, maybe let them touch us. Maybe more. We liked them; they were usually smarter and more interesting in many ways than our boring boys.

By dinner time, the Catholic boys went back to their homes where – at worst – they might be scolded for hanging out with the “bad” girls. No one really cared, though. The message was, boys will be boys, and they seemed to feel that they were entitled to getting “a little” on the side. In real life they only dated and eventually married those good girls (Like Mrs. Kav), and we didn’t know that we were we were nothing more than a fun distraction until much later.

So, when Kav went out of his way to point out that Ford was not even in his regular circle of Catholic school friends and, therefore, he could not have assaulted her, well! Based on my experiences, that was all the more reason to believe that he DID! Of course, my experiences don’t prove he is guilty, but it sure casts doubt in my mind.

And, he kept talking about all those women from his inner circle who wrote in support of him. White privilege inner circles tend to protect each other.

And his outrage and tears during the hearing? I already mentioned that he and millions of boys grew up feeling entitlement to sexual escapades, as long as they followed the party line in all other things. I could see and hear the outrage he feels realizing that such entitlement is coming back to bite him. He kept shouting, “I am part of the second highest court in the land” and “I am a Yale Law School graduate” and “I am given the highest rating by the Bar!”  The implication is that such an esteemed person would never have been drunk and sexually reckless in high school. At least, not on the record and only during forays into the bad girl’s neighborhood.

I am sure the outrage from the senators and our president stems mostly from that same reality – that the entitlement is ending. A bit more each day. One woman at a time.

Why else do I doubt Kav? Definitely, the strong, raw testimony of his accuser stands on its own.

A final thought about the public face of the good Catholic families in my neighborhood. I always felt inferior to them. They lived in the nicest part of our neighborhood in the biggest houses. The huge, robust families attended church and family events together and seemed so normal and happy compared to my family, which was tainted by divorce, alcoholism. and dysfunction.  I craved their normalcy. Decades later, I was contacted, via Facebook, by several of the guys I mentioned earlier. They were unhappy people and seemed to be looking for the distractions of earlier times. Still, I liked the idea of reconnecting with old friends and even visited with them on various occasions. They shared stories about real life in their houses back in the day. One was beaten regularly by his father, and his mother was an alcoholic. Another was beaten regularly by an older brother and his parents looked the other way. The third also had an alcoholic parent and dysfunctional home life. While I didn’t feel any better about my upbringing after hearing their stories, I was reminded about how much pain can live behind a happy exterior.

So, back to the hearing. Is anyone going to win in this drama?