For Christine Blasey Ford to Be Believable, She Had to Be ‘Likable’

“Does that work for you? Does that work for you, as well?”  

That was the professor Christine Blasey Ford, on Thursday, during her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee—and, consequently, before the nation and the world—responding to the possibility, after an hour of being interrogated on live television, of taking a break. Chuck Grassley, the chair of the committee, had suggested the idea of a short recess. Ford’s reply to him would be deeply familiar to the vast collection of people who grow up conditioned to consider the needs of others before their own: Does that work for you, as well? Ford added, by way of explanation: “I’m used to being collegial.”

There’s been a lot of talk, this week, about collegiality. There’s been a lot of talk about respect, about civic duty, about the responsibilities and the apathies into appearing, and who had begun her to the Judiciary Committee with a stark confession: “I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school.”