**Note- I was hesitant to post this here since for the most part, I’ve kept his related to all things nursing. The longer I pondered it, the more I leaned away from that decision. Nursing is not the safest profession to be in. According to OSHA, “From 2002 to 2013, incidents of serious workplace violence (those requiring days off for the injured worker to recuperate) were four times more common in healthcare than in private industry on average”. In the health care and social assistance sectors, 13% of days away from work were the result of violence in 2013, and this rate has increased in recent years (U.S. Department of Labor [DOL], Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). Examples of workplace violence include direct physical assaults (with or without weapons), written or verbal threats, physical or verbal harassment, and homicide (Occupational Safety and Health Administration OSHA, 2015). So while this might feel like a partisan appeal, the fact is that nurses and healthcare workers remain at risk of assault and battery so I feel it’s relevant and compelled to write about it.
An Open Letter to Christine Margaret Blasely Ford,
Today we the women of the United States and victims of assault, rape, and abuse, listened intently as you relived your attempted rape, publicly and painfully. Today you endured a different, although no less traumatic, kind of assault. Today our country failed you. As each angry white, aged male questioned your judgment, your memory, your confidence in your answers, and the impacts of your experience, through the eyes of a sex crimes prosecutor, you remained composed. No victim should be expected to endure what you have today, let alone by their elected officials.
These same men claimed they wanted nothing more than to give you a right to speak and “be heard”, but there was no listening that took place. Instead, well-rehearsed lines filled with vitriol and pestilence were hurled at you as if to cast stones, each one labeled “drunk”, “mixed up”, “confused” … While they weren’t cast at you in the courtroom, they were in the hallways to any camera that would listen, during the breaks provided to give you a brief reprieve.
Today the very men that question your judgment, hid behind a thinly veiled trial to which a prosecutor kindly provided shelter. Today these men indirectly sent a clear message that they could not be trusted to question you fairly. Instead, they chose to paint a picture of fairness and objectivity by having a woman ask you their questions. Yet somehow a woman is not to be trusted with her own memory.
Today you talked about how you insisted there be two front doors on your newly renovated home. A fact that you remained deeply fearful of a lack of exit route be available as you were during your assault. Your fear was dismissed and deflected.
Today you said your most vivid memory was the laughter you heard between two men participating in your nightmare. Laughing at the expense of a woman not to be trusted to be telling the truth; a woman not to be trusted to be able to identify her assailant even after claiming she was 100% certain of who it was. A man you requested not even be in the same room as you, to this day.
Today a courtroom was used as a means of escaping truth and facts, a stark contrast to a whose walls were built around a foundation of justice and due process. Today, you were tried for being a victim of something unimaginable by most but sadly, experienced by many. Today, our hope for what is right and just, lacked any resemblance of morals and ethics as senator after senator claimed you were a part of a leftist conspiracy or smear campaign and everything to gain by doing so, even though you, in fact, had everything to lose.
Today you were questioned countless times as to why you never reported this crime, by those that have no background in assault or extensive knowledge around the long-term impacts to victims.
Your privacy has been invaded both personally and professionally so much so that today you required bodyguards. No doubt, not a first time since all of this unfolded. While all of these years you kept your secret behind closed doors, today the intimate details of your assault, your trauma, and pain were on display for all to see. The grotesque sideshow of a display created today is both inexcusable and certainly a heavy black mark on the history or our judicial system.
Today, I hope that you don’t look back on this experience as being a mistake or lapse in judgment, but rather as a means of giving a voice to women and the many victims whose voices have been quieted for so many years.
Sincerely,
We who stand to support you.