The Women’s Wave Will Douse This Fire by Chloe T. When asked to find the words to address Kavanaugh's hearings, my throat clenches and my voice softens. I wish my body did not betray me. I want to be loud, angry, and strong, but this is the opposite of what I feel. In truth, I have never felt smaller or more insignificant. I am weak. Between classes, during class, and at lunch I live-streamed Dr. Ford’s testimony. I felt the terror in her soft, pleading words. I imagined my own body under Kavanaugh that summer night in Bethesda, my screams for help muffled by his forceful hand, his drunken attempt to remove my clothes, the haunting laughter of Brett and Mark as I pondered ways to escape. I cannot bear to consider locking eyes with Mark, because I knew he did nothing but laugh alongside Brett. I cannot unhear the laughter. I envisioned myself as Dr. Ford with ease, placed myself into the upstairs bedroom, and again in the dark of the hallway bathroom after running out of the bedroom. I cried as I exited my mental scenario and returned to Rachel Mitchell’s compassionless questioning. My nausea was growing. I ran to the bathroom and vomited. Question by question, my hope whittled away. No FBI investigation, no Mark Judge, no Leland Keyser. Dr. Ford was alone. I am alone. I did not realize, before now, how disturbing the effortlessness of becoming Dr. Ford was, like so many women I know did too. We are alone. I am only able to speak to some of Kavanaugh's testimony; it was too damaging, too hurtful to watch it all. What I did see has not left me. The anger and force with which he spat at the committee is something I will never forget. I am so afraid. His relentless denial of drinking problems, assault, even against Ms. Ramirez and Ms. Swetnick (whom he called a “farce”) sent me back to my imagined identity as Dr. Ford. My chest tightened, my breathing shallowed. I thought I might suffocate. It was not the heartbreak of losing a lover. It was the acute, physical pain of dismantling a heart fiber-by-fiber, shattering identity, and invalidating experience. So many things didn’t add up: his calendars, the crude comments he made in yearbooks, his hysterical denial of excessive drinking despite what his classmates testified, his dismissal of an FBI investigation. How could the committee not see it? How could they ignore his irate eyes and the way he yanked the pages of his testimony in disgust? I wondered how this could be the person we were considering for one of the most prestigious roles in America. I haven’t slept through the night since September 27th, the day of the hearing. I cannot separate Dr. Ford from myself. Her invalidation is mine. Each time I roll awake in the middle of the night, I feel unsettled and afraid, and I cannot immediately identify why. I wonder if Dr. Ford feels the same. Though I was not alive twenty-seven years ago to see Clarence Thomas confirmed to the US Supreme Court despite Anita Hill’s testimony, I am alive now to attest to the fact that America has made no change. I, along with countless other women, have no reason to believe our stories are of any value. Kavanaugh’s final confirmation to the Supreme Court prove they do not. No one deserves to determine how Dr. Ford, or any victim of abuse, should handle their pain. Articulating assault gives it shape and dimension, makes it something real and forceful. The second you gather the strength to speak out and tell your story is the same second you must become defender of your own worth as a human being. If you wait too long to come forward, you must be lying; never come forward and you allow your abuser and the patriarchy (to which he belongs) to remain unchallenged because you’ve been taught to do so. You go through an entire lifetime of feeling like no one is listening to you, just to find out that if you finally speak, it will be ignored.You are forced to be responsible for your own trauma. Guilt and regret will creep into every aspect of your identity if you come forward, and if you don’t. The system was designed for women to fail. My heart aches. The female body is merely an object to dominate; the female narrative is a story meant to be disregarded. As Eavan Boland wrote, I feel like “a woman without a country.” Dr. Ford’s unassuming courage became a light for all women, all victims of abuse, that America extinguished without hesitation. America chose to distort and to decimate the fragile shape Dr. Ford’s own words gave to her trauma. I can never forgive America. What little optimism I had has been ripped away from me. I am shaky and tense. I do not know how to speak about this with anyone. I wish I could offer some sense of shock, but it does not exist. I mistook shock for my own disappointment. Trump thrives on any force of divisiveness, and this is no different. I’ve been told “to be angry, to be sad, but not hopeless,” or “to be proud of my tears;” while these attempts at comfort are well-intentioned, I am not proud yet. I can’t seem to find hope, but I will stand up and with other women until I do, because it is all I can do. This is not the end.