WARNING: This article contains a description of a sexual assault.
The Ford-Kavanaugh hearing was hard to watch. From Dr. Christine Blasey Ford struggling to hold back her tears while recounting her sexual assault more than three decades ago, to Judge Brett Kavanaugh saying, “I drank beer with my friends […] Sometimes I had too many beers. Sometimes others did. I liked beer. I still like beer.” In some ways, it was the perfect embodiment of the decline of American politics during the age of Trump.
Dr. Ford has said that when she was in high school, Judge Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party. He pinned her down on top of a bed, and tried taking off her clothes. According to Ford, she tried to yell for help, but, “Brett put his hand over my mouth to stop me from screaming. This was what terrified me the most, and has had the most lasting impact on my life. It was hard for me to breathe, and I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me.”
Throughout the proceedings, Republican senators did not ask Ford a single question; those all came through Rachel Mitchell, a well-known sex crimes prosecutor from Arizona. Mitchell tried to discredit Ford by focusing on where the funding for her polygraph test had come from, how she had paid for security, and how she found her lawyers.
Then, the Judiciary Committee moved on to questioning Kavanaugh himself. Almost instantly, Kavanaugh became defensive, evasive, and aggressive, especially during questioning from Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. He responded to her questions with more questions.
If a woman had been in front of that committee and even acted slightly in the manner that Kavanaugh did, she would’ve been called unhinged, emotional, hysterical, and maybe even shrill. Kavanaugh has not received such criticisms. If anything, Kavanaugh’s “spirited defense of himself” has made the President and male Republican Senators even more supportive.
Contrast that image with Dr. Ford. She was collected and answered almost every question that was thrown at her, even fighting through tears at some points, to recount what mostly likely was the worst day of her life. Yet, her testimony hasn’t really changed any Republican senators’ mind. Lindsey Graham even commented that “Miss Ford has got a problem, and destroying Judge Kavanaugh’s life won’t fix her problem.”
This idea that Kavanaugh’s life is being ruined enrages me. We should be thinking about how Dr. Ford has had to go through her life carrying this trauma, but instead we’re focusing on how the man’s life is being ruined by not getting a job.
Throughout all the trauma Ford has suffered, she has received numerous death threats in the time since she has come forward with her story. Her name is being dragged through the mud by people who claim she’s lying because she didn’t come forward with her story when it happened, or that she sounded too robotic. I know she’s not lying because she moved almost 3,000 miles away from the suburbs of Washington, D.C., to escape her trauma, just like I moved 232 miles to escape mine.
In junior year of high school, I was sexually assaulted by a freshman. My assault would be classified as a “forcible touching” under New York Statute 130.52.
My friend group was hanging out at my best friend’s house. At one point, some of my friends got into a fight, so I stepped out of the room and into the kitchen. I decided to clean some dishes to take my mind off the fight. The next thing I know, he came up behind me and just grabbed me.
I was so ashamed of what happened, and for multiple months I honestly believed that I deserved it. I thought that as the older person, I had the responsibility to stop it, but I didn’t.
But when the assault happened, I froze. In that one moment, I felt so powerless and degraded in a place where I had previously shared so many happy memories with my friends. Although it might have only lasted for no more than 10 seconds, it felt like he was holding me for an eternity. He only let go when he heard one of my other friends coming into the room. I still remember the feeling of standing alone in the kitchen after both men had left, and then walking back into the living room with everyone else and pretending that nothing had happened.
That was a lie.
I saw my assailant almost everyday during marching band and wind ensemble rehearsals. Even if he was on the opposite side of the room, I could feel my stomach drop, and found myself becoming more rigid and silent, just like how I felt during the assault. Even the mere mention of his name would make me stop in my tracks.
My friends still talked to him, and it infuriated me. I wanted to speak up, I wanted to tell them what he had done, but whenever I tried, I went back to that moment and stopped myself. I only told my best friend about the assault about a month before I came to Hamilton. I thought I had moved past that point of my life and that coming to Hamilton would set me free.
That was also a lie.
As this hearing has been the focus of the news cycle for the past week or two, it inevitably brought my assault to the forefront of my thoughts.
For the longest time, I believed that because my sexual assault wasn’t as graphic as others, I didn’t have a right to be sad and I should just move on. I thought I was alone, until I heard Dr. Ford say, “I tried to convince myself that because Brett did not rape me, I should be able to move on and just pretend that it had never happened.”
It was at this moment where I started to cry. The emotions I had tried to bottle up for past year suddenly burst out of me. For the first time in a while, I didn’t feel alone.
Dr. Ford has taught me that you can never truly escape your assault. You can move to the other side of the country, but your assault will always be part of you. But she has shown me the strength I need to stand up and change my life for the better.
I know I’m not alone. According to RAINN, an anti-sexual violence organization, the amount of calls to the National Sexual Assault hotline increased by 201 percent during the hearings.
If you’re comfortable talking about your assault, please share it. Just like Dr. Ford did, we need to stand up and combine our voices for those who are afraid. Together, we can take our power back from our assaulters and show others that they are not alone.
Our assailants don’t have any power over us.
