Christine Blasey Ford, In Her Own Words

The author of a new memoir on retaliation, recovery—and the survivors who reached out to her

BY CINDI LEIVE

Five and a half years ago, psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford raised her right hand before the 21-person Senate Judiciary Committee and became, despite her best attempts otherwise, a public figure. Her testimony that then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when they were both in high school—that he had covered her mouth so violently that “I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me” and laughed while doing it—riveted the country in one of those moments that felt like history even as it was happening.

On one level, we all know what happened next: Kavanaugh railed angrily, protestors took to the streets, and after a brief delay, he was confirmed while the sitting president mocked Dr. Ford ruthlessly. But what happened next to the woman at the center of the hearings—and what led her to that day? Those are the questions Dr. Ford answers in her new memoir, One Way Back, an account of everything before, during, and after her testimony.

DR. FORD BEING SWORN IN FOR HER TESTIMONY. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

I’ve known Dr. Ford for a few years, and thus have had a glimpse of the dual role she plays in mid-2020s America. To me—and I’m guessing to most of you—she’s a hero, someone who respects the integrity of this country’s highest offices so much that she sacrificed her own privacy, comfort, and security for them. To the radical right, though, she’s a target—so much so that death threats (“I want to see you three feet under, six feet under…” she says) have been a constant in her life, and she’s had to hire security to protect her family. After she appeared alongside Professor Anita Hill on The Meteor’s podcast Because of Anita two years ago, I got a call from a political operative hissing ominously, “She was told to keep her mouth shut.”

I’m so happy she hasn’t. Her book is full of secrets and grief and Capitol Hill betrayals, but also sun and surf and heavy metal and the voice of the actual human behind that blue suit and raised right hand. We talked by phone two weeks after her book came out.

Cindi Leive: You once told me that when you thought about writing a memoir about testifying, you thought of those kids’ books that can be read two ways—like you read it in one direction, and then turn it upside down and it’s a different story. What were those two ways that you thought about your own experience? 

Christine Blasey Ford: I think for the first two or three years post-testimony, I was torn between two books I could write: One would be why you must do this, with all the benefits [of coming forward about assault], and the other would be why you should never do this—about all the forces that are working against you, and all of the costs. For a long time, I was in a place of experiencing the retaliation and costs. That’s why I chose not to write for so long. I knew that my first attempt would not be helpful to anyone.

I think it was at the five-year mark that I began to feel that it was part of history, not part of current events. For me personally, it felt like it was enough in the rearview mirror that I could try to write something that honored that, yeah, this is life-changing, and there was a cost, but there’s also a bunch of benefits that you don’t really see while you’re making the life changes.

You and I met through a project focused on the more than 100,000 letters you got after you testified. And I remember you saying at first that you thought to yourself, Why are they writing me? Didn’t they see the end of the movie? Meaning—that [Kavanaugh] was confirmed anyway…  

The first letters I read were [written] during the week of the paused investigation between the hearing and the vote, where [the FBI] was going to supposedly look into things a little deeper and do an extended background check. And those letters were really hopeful—and I felt bad for them considering how it ended [with no extensive investigation and a swift confirmation] because their hopes had been raised. And then, with the letters that came after, I just felt like, “I bet a lot of this mail is people who are feeling sorry for me.” I felt like I had missed a game-winning field goal or made an own goal in a game. [Laughs]

But then, when I really looked through the letters…yes, people felt bad for me, but that’s not really why they were writing. There was an amazing benefit happening for survivors watching the testimony: They wrote that they were inspired to make more clarified decisions about whether they wanted to come forward or not about their own assault or they wanted to share it with someone else. And I grapple with the fact that all of that came because I didn’t get my way that the hearing be kept private. It was televised, and even though it turned my life upside down, it benefited so many people.

Wait, pause on that. You write that you didn’t actually realize it would be televised…you thought, “Maybe it’ll be on C-Span, but who the hell watches C-Span?”  

[Laughs] I mean, I was walking down the hallway like, “Oh, it’s a work day. No one’s going to watch this. My friends are all really hard workers, and they have class and they have responsibilities. I’ll catch them up on it when I get back.”

MILLIONS OF PEOPLE STOPPED TO WATCH DR. FORD’S TESTIMONY. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

Cut to me sobbing in front of my television in Brooklyn, along with practically every other woman in the country.  

Right. During my first break, I really realized the magnitude of people who were watching it because I looked at my phone and had more text messages than I had ever collectively received. “Good job!” “You’re doing great!” [Laughs] I was like, “How do they know?”

But if it had gone the way you had anticipated—like, one camera for the archives somewhere in a basement—then these 100,000 people wouldn’t have been able to make meaning in their own lives…And that process of “meaning-making,” I learned from you, is an actual psychological phenomenon.

I didn’t understand it until my student at the time—Elizabeth Michael, who’s now a doctor of psychology—explained it to me: People change their emotions and cognitions based on hearing or viewing someone else’s experience. And I still was in a pretty rough patch in my life, so I wasn’t really understanding…so she placed it in the context of television and movies. If you’re watching a TV show and you’re relating to some character, there’s this small shift and identification and validation that’s happening about your own thoughts and feelings. It starts to open up something in your own mind to think about. 

I’m wondering if you want to share a couple of the specific letters that moved you…

All of the things that people made by hand or knitted—almost every day, I could wear an item of clothing, whether it’s socks or gloves or a shirt or a scarf, or blankets, that people made. The simple thank you’s were beautiful in their own right—and then there were 10-page letters from people sharing what they had been through themselves. And also the offers! Like Otis from Texas, offering his truck for my family to move in, and people from all over the country saying, “You can come stay at our place. We have a cabin!” Like, who would open their door to a stranger? A lot of people, apparently. 

You’ve said that survivors in their 70s and 80s wrote you to say that they’d never talked about their own experiences before. What was it like to read those letters? 

I felt for them—and I felt like I could have easily been one of them and gone the rest of my life without really talking about this. I was on a different path once the Supreme Court was in play—I felt the value of that institution was more important than me. But those letters were really hard to read at the beginning. Then I adapted, and I feel like I have a new role, which is to be a recipient of those stories and to honor them.

That’s also what happens to me any time I go out in public: People come up to me and want to tell me what happened to them. They’ve identified me as a safe person to speak to about their story. At first, that role was really overwhelming. And now, it’s an honor. I’m honored to be that person.

DR. FORD SIGNING HER MEMOIR FOR A READER AT A GATHERING IN LOS ANGELES. (PHOTO BY MAYA JOAN)

You and Anita Hill have a lot in common. And you talked about this when you were on the Because of Anita podcast two years ago, but part of your common experience is that in both of your cases, Congress failed to do a full investigation. And in your case, we later learned that the FBI had received 4,500 tips at the time of the hearing and shared them with the White House, at which point nothing happened. First of all, how have you let go of being, like, so damn angry about that? Because it’s hard for me to even say those words aloud and not be pissed. 

That was really quite something. And the public didn’t learn about [the failed investigation] until, like, two years after the testimony. But we sort of knew that right away. So it was, for me, bundled up in the grief immediately after the vote and the FBI not coming to interview me and my corroborators. And the logistics involved—where the executive branch is overseeing the FBI, so they’re the ones deciding whether they want to look at those tips or not.

The process was the most disappointing part about it. The outcome was less disappointing than the process.

You write that you’ve moved into the phase of “radical acceptance,” but how would you like to see the process work for people who might come forward with information that should be heard in the future? 

I’m concerned that people won’t come forward, given the process that they’ve witnessed. I think in the workplace and in other settings where you have H.R. and Title IX and other protections, it’s maybe a little bit safer—a little bit more defined, at least. And in [most] workplaces, you’re not allowed to retaliate. And so I think that, at minimum, we need to make sure that there’s no retaliation against people for speaking up in a government setting. I think we’re better than that.

One of the most moving scenes in the book is during the summer of 2018 when you’re deciding how to come forward with what you know about [then-nominee Kavanaugh]. And your older kid is kind of intuiting what’s happening but doesn’t totally know….

He was noticing my behavior was a lot different at the beach that summer—I was talking to my friends excessively, and we were very serious and focused rather than relaxed. We were on a very tight timeline: The president had said that there was going to be a nominee selected in one week, and when Brett was on the shortlist that week, I was certainly just behaving differently. And kids pick up on these things, so he asked about it a few times. I kept it as simple as possible and said, “Someone that I know from high school who did something really bad to me is being considered for a really important job by the president, and I need to let him know.”

When I first told him, he said, “Well, that’s really nice.” He said it with a tad of confusion. And then, the next day, he came back to me and had thought about it, and he said he probably had an idea of what might have happened to me and that he was really sorry.

What a loving response. That’s what you’d want to hear from anyone.

He’s a great kid. I’m really lucky. And in my mind, it was like, “Oh, now I can go forward. He’s okay with it.”

What you went through in 2018 left such a long shadow over the last five years for you. And I’m curious: What are the moments where you feel like you can be liberated from thinking about all of that and just be you?  

Minimalism is now my new way of being, and I’ve just found that really helpful—to reduce the complexity of life, for now. That’s where I feel like I can be myself: outside or in the ocean or just among a small group of friends.

 So not in the mosh pit at a Metallica concert?

Oh, there, too. There too.

ABOUT CINDI LEIVE

Cindi Leive is the co-founder of The Meteor, the former editor-in-chief of Glamour and Self, and the author or producer of best-selling books including Together We Rise. Her related listening recommendation: Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford, in conversation for the first time here.

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