Callers Flood C-SPAN With Stories of Sexual Assault During Christine Blasey Ford's Hearing
On Thursday, Christine Blasey Ford stood before a panel of mostly male United States senators for four hours and laid bare some of her most painful memories: an alleged assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh from 36 years ago, and the trouble that's come her way since attaching her name to those allegations.
Ford's allegations-that Kavanaugh and a friend of his held her down, tried to forcibly remove her clothes, and laughed at her until fleeing the room-have struck a chord with countless women who share similar experiences. People, including Senator Cory Booker, have praised Ford as a hero for choosing to testify, and subject herself to questioning by the Senate Judiciary Committee as they move to confirm Kavanaugh.
As Ford answered questions from Democratic senators and Rachel Mitchell, a prosecutor sitting in for Republican senators, C-SPAN received innumerable calls from people sharing their own stories of sexual assault. Politico reports C-SPAN received a "flood" of assault stories throughout the hearing from people who self-identified as Republicans, Democrats and independents.
One caller, a woman named Brenda from Missouri, spoke to a common, shared sentiment among American women in the wake of the Ford allegations, and said the hearing dredged up her memory of being molested as a child for the first time in years.
"I’m a 76-year-old woman who was sexually molested in second grade. This brings back so much pain," she said on the call, according to TIME. "You will never forget it. You get confused and you don’t understand it but you never forget what happened to you... I thought I was over this. And I have not brought this up for years until I heard this testimony and it is just breaking my heart."
Brenda from Missouri calls C-SPAN
"I'm a 76-year-old woman who was sexually molested in 2nd grade. This brings back so much pain. Thought I was over it but it's not. You will never forget it. You get confused & you don't understand it but you never forget what happened to you." pic.twitter.com/uCgroeQ4B5- CSPAN (@cspan) September 27, 2018
Another caller named Diana told a story that hit at what's been a major point of contention, particularly among Republicans, throughout this process-the amount of time Ford waited to report the alleged assault.
"From a personal standpoint, I was the victim of abuse when I was 13 and I came out close to 30 years old," Diana said. "It does not make you less credible because you come out 17 years later. It can take a lot of time to process these things that happen to you when you are underage, and cannot comprehend what is happening, or how it affects you down the road."
Diana's point speaks directly to Donald Trump's first response to the Ford allegations. On Friday, Trump tweeted that "if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents." His tweet prompted survivors to organize under the hashtag #WhyIDidntReport, where people shared the multitude of reasons why they, like Ford, didn't immediately say anything about their own assaults.
I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2018
As the hearing progresses with Kavanaugh, C-SPAN continues to air calls from survivors. You can watch the hearing live on C-SPAN's YouTube channel here.
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