The bodies of young women have long been considered collateral damage on the journey to manhood. Now, panicked men are lining up to insist not just that Ford and the other accusers are lying about this assault – which Kavanaugh himself denies – but also to say that it was perfectly alright if it did happen. Boys will be boys, after all, and if we condemn Kavanaugh for a bit of after-school ultra-violence, well, shouldn’t we also condemn half the men in America? Our parents, our children, ourselves?
----------------
None of this is an accident. Women’s sexual agency is a key voting issue for Bible-belt republicans who believe that women and girls should not be allowed to choose whether and when they bear children. The Republican Party stands or falls on this issue, as does what democratic credibility remains to the Trump regime.

There is enough evidence to suggest that without the promise to put forced-birth advocates like Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, all the Russian bots in the world could not have sent the Hog-Emperor of Rape Culture to the White House.
---------------
And now that ancient injustice is building towards its own dreadful denouement. The struggle between democracy and tyranny and the struggle by women against male violence are one and the same. They always have been, and the Kavanaugh case makes it clear. And it is clear, also, that, there is a decision ahead of every one of us.