How many blondes does it take to accuse a sitting judge?

When I was a kid, my dad was always incredibly proper, never ever laughing at crude humor or using curse words, never tolerating disrespect of adults, kids, God, church leaders, teachers, disabled people, people who spoke with an accent, people who didn’t speak English. People who lived on Earth, basically. And he never tolerated the objectification of women.


He didn’t allow blonde jokes in our house. If someone told a blonde joke, he told us all why it wasn’t funny. He said that blonde jokes were unfair to blondes and to women and girls in general, casually casting them--us--as dumb, stupid, or promiscuous.


My mom was less intense about it, but she didn’t allow those jokes either. In tenth grade, when I asked one more stupid question in the honors geometry class that I was failing--because there are stupid questions in math, you know--my geometry teacher told me in front of the class, “Oh Eliza, you’re such a blonde.” I mentioned the encounter to my mom and she took it right up with the principal and the head of the math department. That teacher wasn’t there the following year, and I’m not saying it had anything to do with my mom, but I’m not saying it didn’t….


I remember someone at a church youth activity using the word “pimpin’ ” (which, if you remember the ‘90s, was a very common term among the youngsters and also a very catchy song by Jay-Z)(sorry if it’s in your head now) and my dad, who was the bishop at the time, took that boy aside and explained to him in great earnest why he never wanted to hear him say that word again.


I too was guilty of such careless, unintentional objectification, and I was called out for it. I was in middle school when I first got the lecture from my dad that a pimp is a man who hires women to have sex with other men for money and then takes a cut of the profit, and it’s super not OK to be casual about that.


Back then, I rolled my eyes a little. I was almost embarrassed about the fuss he made about not offending women in those casual ways. I lumped his intolerance for blonde jokes and the words “pimp” and “slut” together with his intolerance for fart jokes and the phrase “shut up.” These were lessons that his kids and the kids he was in charge of at church learned over and over, it wasn’t a one-time discussion, it was the law and we were reminded in public and in private.


My parents taught those lessons to girls and boys equally, as far as I surmised. And they were unequivocal in their stance of how serious a violation it is either to demean women or to laugh with people who do.


So here’s what I’ve been thinking about. I’ve been hearing that we parents should teach our teenage daughters to keep themselves and their friends safe at parties. Don’t drink too much, don’t drink at all, be careful what you wear, be careful what you say, don’t go home with a strange guy, don’t be alone with a strange guy, don’t be alone with a guy you know, don’t go to those parties in the first place, don’t fool around with boys sexually, be careful about your reputation.


In summary, these seem to say: don’t get raped, and also live so that if you reported a rape, the people you knew and loved would believe you.


I actually fully agree with all of those tips, but I don’t think they are actually the solution to the problem of rapes at boozy parties. Here’s my proposed solution:


We parents should teach our teenage sons to keep themselves and their friends safe at parties. Don’t drink too much, don’t drink at all, be careful not to stare at girls’ breasts, be careful what you say, don’t go home with a strange girl, don’t be alone with a strange girl, don’t be alone with a girl you know, don’t go to those parties in the first place, don’t fool around with girls sexually, be careful about your reputation.


In summary: don’t rape. And also, live so that there is no possible way that any girl or woman would be able to claim that you had touched her inappropriately, said crude things to her, taken advantage of her, or done anything but respect her and help keep her safe.


In any crime, the burden of proof falls to the accuser. With sex crimes, I’d like to see that burden shifted further toward the accused. Don’t want to be accused of rape? Don’t do that stuff I just listed. Be more careful.


Teenage boys should probably not be completely alone with teenage girls, if only because they're teenagers. But do I think men shouldn't be alone with women ever? No. Shutting out women from normal professional or social situations is not the answer. But I do think that before meeting with a woman alone, men should be aware that they could get accused. Just like the women are aware that they could get raped. It doesn't have to be a sexual elephant in the room. We could just all be more aware, protect ourselves, and not get handsy.


And if it's getting (appropriately) romantic, establish boundaries first. There's a fantastic BYU devotional all about this. "I believe some instances of unwanted sexual contact at BYU occur because one person assumes the other is interested and “goes for it” without ever checking to see if their perception of the other person’s wishes is accurate. They then may stop when explicitly asked, but only after having kissed or touched without permission. Although this situation is different from one in which a perpetrator deliberately ignores the other’s wishes and forces sexual contact, it is still without consent and is prone to result in significant negative consequences for the other person." Consent before any physical contact completely eliminates the claim of ignorance.


AND, if we’re ready for the next level. We parents should risk the eye rolls and proactively teach our boys and girls to be repulsed at any hint of sexually explicit jokes, casual crude humor, or stereotyping a woman based on her looks.


Could taking rape and rape culture seriously, through drastic preventive measures, be the antidote to the scourge of rape?!


OK, no. It won’t. Rape won’t ever go away. But if more good boys, including those who get good grades and play sports and have friends who are girls, would take that stuff seriously. If more good boys would protect themselves and their friends by staying out of bedrooms. If more good boys would keep their hands to themselves. If more good boys would refuse to laugh at or repeat demeaning jokes or slurs.


If they’d do all that--perhaps we could reduce the number of sketchy situations; perhaps we could reduce the number of credible rape accusations.


(or in other words, most of them, since false reports of rape make up about 2-10% of reports, according to NSVRC.)


To those who feel that the names and reputations of good men are in danger because of public accusations like Christine Blasey Ford’s against Brett Kavanaugh. Can those good men you think of, prove that they “would never” attack a girl or a woman? If they can: that’s amazing. I believe that my father could prove it. I believe that my husband could prove it. (They'd better be able to.) I believe that a whole lot of good, good men and boys could prove it. But because of some bad apples, the onus still needs to be on all men to prove it.



I don’t think Brett Kavanaugh can prove it. Although he has an impeccable record as an adult (and good job hiring women--I like that) the details about his high school and college partying are super murky. He’ll probably make it to the Supreme Court anyway, but please bless that this is another chip in the “believe men, believe boys, because they would NEVER DO THIS” fallacy. Please bless that as parents, we’ll be the sticks in the mud, we’ll be the wet blankets, we won’t be naive, we’ll be the ones who take this seriously.