The Inescapable Misogyny of Prep School
Regardless of how the Senate Judiciary Committee decides to assess Dr. Blasey-Ford’s allegations against Judge Kavanaugh, along with the new allegations brought forth by others, it ought to be obvious by now that that all-male prep schools are a festering backwater of misogyny and male entitlement. I know because I attended one in the mid-seventies, a half-decade before Mr. Kavanaugh attended Georgetown Prep.
My Alma mater was very much like Judge Kavanaugh’s. It was Catholic, all male, and many of my classmates were extraordinarily gifted intellectually. For the most part, we were the sons of middle class aerospace engineers with a level of entitlement commensurate with being white and male and clever. We were certainly not the scions of any kind of “power elite” or an enthroned class of American Brahmins. Perhaps this is why there was never the kind of egregious abuse of women akin to that testified to by Dr. Ford. We did, however, parade a whole host of misogynistic attitudes that dehumanized young women as the objects of our nascent and un-socialized adolescent libidos. In both thoughts and words, it was horrendous. This was not due to the Catholic Church, the faculty of our school, or any programmatic agenda. It’s just what happens when you separate boys from girls at a time when they are developing emotionally and sexually from boys to young men. There is a terrible legacy of exclusive boys schools in the UK where the whole world learned just how far off the rails this system could go, with physical and emotional abuse and the sexualization of younger, vulnerable and attractiveboys.
But at my school something extraordinary happened in 9thgrade. Against our strenuous objections our school opened its doors to girls. There were nine the first year and it forced a tectonic shift in our culture. I still remember clearly riding the bus to school on the first day of fall term and the two girls that rode that bus with us. They looked absolutely (and justifiably) terrified. The boys around me openly speculated about their clothes, their hair, their make-up, their bodies and their demeanor. And these girls just took it – the leering glances, the covetous eyes, the salacious comments, all of it. Ignoring us, they looked forward, undeterred and resolute. I had read about the taunting of black Americans on buses they were not welcome to ride and imagined this was exactly what these girls were experiencing. One girl, Sharon, sweated profusely and I remember feeling bad for her. I wanted to help put her at ease, but I didn’t have the moral courage to endure the avalanche of jests and recriminations I would certainly have been subjected to if I had. I really did feel for her though, and by the ride home later that day I admired her. This horrendous state of affairs didn’t last all that long – some weeks or months, but by midterm most of these girls had carved out a place in our community. This was due wholly to their perseverance and strength and to the inevitable resolution that even the most sexist among us had to admit: apart from their gender identity, they were just like us and deserved to be accorded the same respect and opportunity. I developed an unrequited crush on Sharon, the girl on the bus. We did become friends, more like brothers and sisters, which was how most of us felt about each other by our junior and senior years. And yes, we had a few drunken blowouts when parents were out of town, but they were remarkably tame. We stayed up late, drank too much, played loud music, told stories and made fun of each other – and that’s about it. Okay, a couple of us made-out in the backyard. But that really was it. So I take great exception to the Kavanaugh apologists who overlook his alleged bad behavior with the rhetorical idiocy of, “What boy hasn’t done this in high school?” Well, I haven’t and I don’t know anyone in my prep school that did – not a single confused, testosterone-addled young man – this despite our early predilection for pre-pubescent misogyny. The truth is, men are just better when women are around and they should never be segregated from them.
I did join a fraternity in college, much like Bret Kavanaugh, but unlike him I resigned publicly and vocally over a sexist tirade an alumni advisor unloaded on us at a meeting he attended to share his sage counsel – which turned out to be advice unfit for a 13-year-old. The truth is that I had outgrown the frat house in the 9thgrade. The big question regarding Judge Kavanaugh is whenor if he ever did – because as one prep school survivor to another, I know from whence he came. His growing litany of denials only indicates to me just how far he still has to go.
