Roundtable Discussion: Update On Kavanaugh Case

Today on Sojourner Truth, a special women's roundtable.

At this critical moment in the U.S. when after decades of a women's rights and feminist movement, we are at a place where a woman makes a charge of attempted rape against Donald Trumps nominee for the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, and very little seems to have changed if anything in the Senate Judiciary Committee with jurisdiction over the Kavanaugh nomination. The Republican leadership on the committee with the backing of Trump first did not want to hear from Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford, the victim, then they agreed to a so-named and very rushed hearing giving her a deadline of 10 a.m. on Friday, September 21 to both agree to testify and to submit her testimony.

And now Dr. Blasey-Ford, via her lawyers, have said she is willing to testify, but not on Monday, Sept 24. The hearing could possibly take place on Thursday, September 27.

Meanwhile, Dr. Blasey-Ford had said that a hearing should not take place before the FBI investigates the incident, the Senate Judiciary Committee has demurred to Trump to make the call on an FBI investigation, and first Trump says the FBI doesn't do that, and then he said there is no need for an investigation and is urging the Senate to move forward in haste with confirming Kavanaugh. If Kavanaugh is confirmed, he joins Clarence Thomas in being the second sitting member of the Supreme Court who has been accused of abuse of a sexual nature, on a court that will decide on the fate of women's right to choose to have children or not, the precedent setting 1971 Supreme Court decision of Roe vs Wade very much at risk.

How did we get to this point? In the age of the #MeToo movement and #TimesUp and #SayHerName, women in the U.S. (including Trans women) and around the world are the overwhelming victims of sexual assault, rape, domestic violence and serial murders; women are still marginalized on just about every front, the caregiving work we do in having children, raising them and the central survival work of caregiving is not valued, its economic contributions denied.

And while violence against women are in every sector of society, women with the least including Black and Brown women are particularly impacted.

Today we get the perspective of women all of whom have been part of the movement of change for women: Mexico City-based Laura Carlsen, former elected official Jackie Goldberg and Barbara Ransby, Distinguished Professor of African American Studies, Gender and Women's Studies and History, author of the brand new book Making Black Lives Matter.