The Kavanaugh Case Illustrates Exactly Why Survivors Don’t Come Forward
Earlier today, the identity of the third woman to accuse Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault was finally revealed: 51 year-old systems engineer, Julie Swetnick. On Sunday night, right around the time her lawyer Michael Avenatti was dropping hints on Twitter about Swetnick and mere minutes before The New Yorker dropped its bomb about Deborah Ramirez’s accusations, I told someone that I would be very surprised if there were not more women who had been victimized by Kavanaugh. I had just hoped they would be brave enough to come forward. As I later posted on Twitter and Facebook, the kind of behavior Christine Blasey Ford described regarding her own alleged assault by Kavanaugh is rarely the kind that occurs as an isolated incident. In fact, an estimated 2/3 of men who rape in college are repeat offenders, who account for the majority of assault that occurs on campuses around the country.
The incidences described by Kavanaugh’s accusers are not examples of youthful indiscretions or “boys will be boys” hijinks. Rather, it is a disturbing part of a larger pattern of sexual predation. But if anything, even in the era of #MeToo, what has been disclosed about Kavanaugh and the backlash experienced by his victims — especially that of Ford — could be its own case study for why women who have survived sexual abuse…
