the ugly and overwhelmingly unchecked misogyny of the Kennedy men, arrived. In AskCallahan charts how American politics’ most famous family degraded and devastated the women in their lives—from Edward Kennedy’s car crash in 1969
“Gaslit. That’s how Mary felt,” Callahan wrote. “The more pain she was in, the worse Bobby treated her. Some days he wanted a divorce; others, he wanted to bring another woman into their bed, an idea that left her humiliated. She rejected him outright.” “There were so many–astronomical numbers, Mary said, and she knew a lot of them: The celebrated actress who came to their house and went on vacations with her family. The older model who was always around. The socialite whose husband was one of Bobby’s good friends. A gorgeous royal. The wife of a very famous man. A lawyer. A doctor. An environmental activist. All these beautiful, accomplished women.
“Mary put on her yoga clothes and sandals, walked out to her barn, stacked three metal crates atop each other, then used a metal ladder to tie a hangman’s knot around the rafter,” Callahan writes. “When she was found that afternoon, Mary’s fingers were stuck inside the rope around her neck. She had changed her mind. She had tried to save herself.” Her