Of course, you know who Brett Kavanaugh is, you probably wouldn't have clicked on this article if you didn't. He is dominating world news at the moment, but I actually don't have much of an opinion on him.
Shocker, I know. Especially since his name is in the title of this article.
Sorry to break it to you, but I'm actually not writing an article about him. Everyone's already sick of hearing about him anyways.
So no, I don't know if he should be confirmed to the Supreme Court and I couldn't tell you whether or not he sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford. Even if all The accusations are true, I'm not even sure what should happen to him because of it.
I hear the people saying, "It was thirty years ago, move on!" I also hear the people begging for him to be convicted for sexual assault. That is not something I want to decide and not something I'm qualified to determine either.
What is important is how often this happens, and no one talks about it.
You all know the stats: Everyday young men and women are sexually assaulted by their fellow high school students. One in four women will experience a form of sexual assault in their lifetime, and a lot of it happens during the school years.
I know so many girls who have been in similar environments as Christine Blasey Ford and "pressured" (or forced) into situations they didn't want to be in. It is tough to find the line between he just got a little too drunk and didn't know what was happening, and he is a sexual predator who rapes women.
It is a dangerous and scary position to be in as a young girl. Either you say something, no one takes you seriously and thinks you are looking for attention or people believe you but feel the experience is way too insignificant to do anything about it. It's a hard decision to make choosing between saying something and standing up for yourself when you're not even sure you have a leg to stand on.
There is such a fine line between two very different extremes. From one perspective it is seen as a silly miscommunication, and the victim is bullied and demeaned. Or the boy involved is labeled as a rapist and his life is ruined. That is a hard decision for confused young girls to make about such an extreme accusation.
I came across several guys in high school who you could say were a little bit too aggressive. They missed, or blatantly ignored cues and would try to take advantage of me when I was obviously in a vulnerable state. Do I think they are evil sexual predators? No. I know them and while I wouldn't consider them the most responsible, quality guys, I also wouldn't say they were trying to sexually assault me (concerned family and friends, I'm not trying to imply I was raped. Because I wasn't. Unwanted sexual contact without a person's consent is also sexual assault.)
And that's not me trying to make excuses for them or blame victims.
It just means that I'm unsure where you draw the line. As a sixteen-year-old-girl do you report a classmate who is dumb, horny and drunk? Ruin their lives over something that could easily be misconstrued and seen from a different perspective?
I honestly don't know the answer to that.
What I do know is that I get why, if it did happen, Mrs. Ford would have waited thirty years, right after Kavanaugh gets announced as a Supreme Court nominee, to speak up about what happened to her. Because while what young Kavanaugh supposedly did was wrong, it's hard as a teenage girl to differentiate between right and wrong, perceptions and reality. Especially while drinking.
Listen, if a few of the questionable guys I knew from high school were about to be confirmed for the Supreme Court, I'd be out there protesting and sharing my experiences with them. (I doubt I'll ever have to do that because no one in their right mind would EVER nominate such asinine boys, but I digress.)
Separate from the sexual encounters that occurred being criminal or not, as a citizen of the United States it is your responsibility to come forward with any information you have that would provide a negative representation of character for a person who's about to have a HUGE amount of power over our country.
But until the douche bags I knew in high school run for an important political position, there's nothing to say. All the girls out there that have felt like Christine Blasey Ford will probably be silent and let the high school boys get away with all of it.
