If you were my daughter, I’d hug you tight. But I’d ask first. I’d ask if it was OK to place my arms around your shoulders. I’d ask to hold you while you cry. Or scream. Or curse. Or exist exempt from judgment. If you were my daughter…

But you are not. You are the age of my mother, who will never tell me of men she dated, parties she attended or boys who made her blush — my mother who taught me women are submissive, quiet. Her example made it easy to surrender to abusive relationships, to believe love was violent, taken by force.

Maybe my mother believed she was helpless. Maybe her experiences taught her to be silent because she would never be strong enough. I wonder if my mother has a story like the one poured out by Dr. Blasey Ford.

When I first heard the accusations against Judge Kavanaugh, I had two conflicting, instantaneous reactions: 1) What’s the big deal? Every woman has someone try to rape her in high school, and 2) If someone did that to my daughter, you would never find their body.

Why do I have such different standards for the treatment of my body and that of my child? Is it because I have already lived a life in which my body only has value as a sexual object, in which my body does not and cannot belong to me?

A man can overpower me. Men have overpowered me. I was 14 the first time it happened. And I said nothing.

I do not know if the accusations against Kavanaugh are true. But before you dismiss the allegations, before you label this a character assassination or a political demonstration, please consider the weight of the words from Ford. Please consider the ways in which this story has ripped her life apart — ways in which she knew her life would be torn apart.

It is easy to say Ford is lying for political reasons. It is easy to refer to the scene she describes as nothing serious, just teenage nonsense. It is even easy to label her nightmare nothing at all. But it is not easy to hear those words from you.

For your sisters and mothers and wives and lovers and daughters — those of us who have been assaulted, abused, raped, violated — it is not easy to hear you dismiss a story with which we are all too familiar. A story we keep silent because we already know what you will say — you’re saying it about her.

There is no proof. She’s lying. Even if it’s true, nothing happened.

Attempted rape is not nothing. Even at 17. It is a crime to grab another person without consent. It is a crime to restrict another person’s movement without consent. It is hard to consent with a hand over your mouth.

It has been more than 30 years since Ford says she was prevented from screaming. Are we ready to listen when she speaks?

Esther Sherman

Albert Lea