Commentary: I am a sexual assault survivor. No, we should not 'believe all women

“Believe all women.”

In the last week, this pious new mantra of the left has been used to completely dismantle an honorable man’s reputation. It’s incredible really, the idea that, in the year 2018, your biological makeup entitles you to be believed even in the absence of one shred of evidence.

Set aside for a moment that the notion is completely contrary to the American idea that we are all innocent until proven guilty, the suggestion that we should “believe all women” is also dangerously irresponsible.

We are told by the left that there are no differences between men and women, that gender is fluid, that women are as capable as men in all circumstances, even though science proves that to be completely untrue. And yet, one of the only ways women are, in fact, equal to men is that we are not infallible. We are not inherently virtuous. We are not morally superior. We can remember things incorrectly, or not remember things at all.

Some women lie, cheat, and steal just as some men do. Some women are manipulative. In fact, some of the most conniving people I’ve known throughout my life have been women (this is admittedly entirely anecdotal). But the idea that we should believe all women simply because they have a different set of genitalia is utterly ridiculous.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh and his family have gracefully endured insults, vulgarities, deceptively edited smear campaigns, and flat out character assassinations since July, when President Donald Trump first announced he was nominating Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court to replace the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. But the left’s latest attempt to destroy him for an unfounded sexual assault accusation is a new low.

I am a sexual assault survivor. I was assaulted multiple times during childhood between the ages of 12 to 16, over two decades ago. I can’t say with 100 percent certainty that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is purposely asserting the allegations against Kavanaugh to intentionally thwart his nomination, none of us should jump to that assumption. What I can say is that I have never forgotten the details of being assaulted. Never would I have to say, “I can’t recall how I ended up at the party,” or “I don’t remember what happened after the assault.” I don’t have the luxury of forgetting those details; they’re etched in my mind forever.

No amount of “investigating” by the Senate Judiciary Committee will yield any kind of proof-positive results, as Democrat leaders certainly already know. The Ford-Kavanaugh incident allegedly happened over three decades ago. A friend of Ford claims she remembers hearing about an “incident” all those years ago, yet backed off those claims a mere 24 hours later. Another friend Ford named as a “witness” claims he has no knowledge of the incident and was never at a party as Ford described. A mutual friend at the time, Mark Judge, categorically denies that it happened. These are the convoluted stories we would expect 30-something years later.

All of this is enough to cast reasonable doubt on her accusations. Reasonable doubt: that standard to which we are supposed to judge someone’s guilt or innocence in this country. No, we shouldn’t blindly “believe all women.” On the contrary, if women (or men, for that matter) accuse someone of something so vile that it would immediately ruin their reputation, we have to expect clear and convincing evidence before we convict anyone in the court of public opinion and permanently tarnish their reputation.

To believe all women is to minimize the experience of real survivors. Sexual assault survivors withstand a lifetime of far-reaching effects, but so do the falsely accused. In either situation, one person's life is negatively impacted forever. It is imperative that political games don’t allow us to lose sight of that.