Interview with Brett Kavanaugh Fox News: The role of his wife

"I know Brett," Ashley Estes Kavanaugh continued.

She appeared Monday night on Fox News next to her husband, Brett Kavanaugh, Supreme Court candidate accused of misconduct by two women: Christine Blasey Ford, who claims to have been sexually assaulted in high school, and Deborah Ramirez, who says that He put his genitals in his face without his consent when they were students at Yale.

By helping to defend her husband (and his political aspirations) against allegations of sexual misconduct or irregularity, she joined a long line of women, which also includes First Lady Melania Trump and Hillary Clinton. But perhaps the closest comparison is with Virginia Thomas, the wife of Judge Clarence Thomas, who was charged during her sexual harassment confirmation process Anita Hill. In a cover story of People Magazine published just after her husband's confirmation, Thomas hits many – but not all – of the same notes as Estes Kavanaugh.

Read the 1991 The story of Estes Kavanaugh shows that although some things have changed since the advent of #MeToo, one thing has nothing to do: when a powerful man is accused of sexual harassment or assault, his wife is supposed to strengthen its public image. like a loving family man. This expectation reveals a misconception. #MeToo has not changed yet: the idea that a loving family man can not be guilty of sexual misconduct.

"I know his heart"

Brett Kavanaugh repeated the same statements over and over again during the interview, and his wife did the same, using her relatively brief speaking time to repeat several variations of the phrase "I know Brett".

"He's decent, he's nice, he's good," she said at one point. "I know his heart."

The message: Estes Kavanaugh knows her 14-year-old husband better than anyone else, so its version is the most reliable. This version – decent, kind, good – is someone who could never do the things that Ford and Ramirez say Kavanaugh did.

In addition to presenting this version of her husband, Estes Kavanaugh appealed to the sympathy of anyone who could doubt him by describing their loving family, pained by false allegations.

"It's very difficult to have these conversations with your children," she said later, describing the impact of the allegations on their families. But, she adds, they know Brett and they know the truth.

"Just remember," she said that she told them, "you know your father."

Estes Kavanaugh also showed compassion for Ford, refusing to criticize her directly.

"I do not know what happened to her," she said. "I feel bad for his family."

Throughout the interview, Estes Kavanaugh introduced herself as a loving wife who knew the character of her husband and who was empathetic and good herself – and not someone who could be married to a guilty man of sexual assault. Estes Kavanaugh may indeed believe that her husband is innocent, but nevertheless, his appearance follows a pattern.

Virginia Thomas published several of the same notes in her cover of People magazine, published in November 1991. There are allegations that Thomas sexually harassed Hill while working for him at the Ministry of Education and the Equality Commission. employment. had become public during the confirmation process, and Virginia Thomas described to People, as stated in the cover, "how we survived."

As Estes Kavanaugh, Thomas described her husband as she saw him: a kind and decent man. Thomas said that her husband even encouraged her to report her own experience of sexual harassment.

"He gave me the courage to go forward," she wrote. "It's not about you," he said. "This is the next woman who enters a workplace."

The Thomas did not have children as the Kavanaugh do, but she described the confirmation process with the help of a group of friends who were praying together. "They brought prayer tapes and we read parts of the Bible," she wrote. "We held hands and prayed. What allowed us to go through the next six days is God.

Thomas described the consequences of the process on her husband. "Virginia," she recalls, asking for a sleepless night, "why are they trying to destroy me?"

"The Clarence Thomas that I had married was not found," she wrote. "He was just debilitated beyond all that I had seen in my life."

Some things have changed since 1991 – but many have remained the same

The biggest difference between Thomas's testimony and Estes Kavanaugh's appearance may lie in the treatment of the accusers of their husbands. Thomas said that she thought Hill believed his own testimony about Clarence Thomas: "I thought it was a lie, but she really believed it was true," did it? she declared. However, she severely criticized Hill in a way that Estes Kavanaugh was not from Ford or Ramirez.

"What she did was so obviously political," wrote Thomas. "And what's scary about his allegations is that they remind me of Fatal Attraction or, in his case, what I call the fatal assistant. In my heart, I have always believed that she was probably in love with my husband and that she had never had what she wanted.

The Kavanaughs and their team must have known that in the #MeToo era, it would be difficult to attack Ford or Ramirez, and both avoided doing so.

Apart from that, little has changed in 27 years regarding the expectations of women politicians. When their husbands are accused of harming other women, they must give more credibility to their husbands' rehabilitation campaigns, talk about their homes and families, and reassure everyone that a man married to a woman

If the allegations against Kavanaugh are true, then Estes Kavanaugh is complicit, to a certain extent, in helping her husband project a healthy image to the American people. Nevertheless, she is not accused of anything. And like so many wives of high-ranking men accused of sexual misconduct, she faces an unenviable choice: either to break with her partner and the father of her children, or to present herself as her witness in the court of law. 'public opinion.

Of course, the fact that a person has a beautiful wife and a loving marriage does not affect the fact that this person has or has not committed sexual misconduct. One of the major revelations of the #MeToo movement has been the prevalence of sexual misconduct – in a survey conducted earlier this year, 81% of women and 43% of men reported being harassed or assaulted at a moment of their life. . Given these numbers, it goes without saying that many people have been harassed or assaulted by male family members or future family men; people who love their wife and their children and pray with their friends.

It is a myth that all wrongdoers are monsters in every aspect of their lives, incapable of loving or caring. But as Estes Kavanaugh has shown on Fox, it's a myth that, even at the time #MeToo, is very much alive.