...and the right, drunk not on beer but on gloating about this huge victory in the war on women, is showing what it really thinks and feels about these issues. It’s ugly, but at least it’s out in the open.
...

To be sure, a lot of Republicans are feebly maintaining the pretense that the Kavanaugh fight is about “false” allegations, but the real concern — fear that we will start taking allegations seriously, because the vast majority are true — is now laid bare for the public to see. Pundits and politicians are openly telling women to stay silent or be accused of being whiny babies. By blocking a thorough investigation of the Kavanaugh allegations and insulting the survivors who protested in the halls of the Capitol, Republicans sent a clear message: They don’t take sexual assault seriously as a crime; they think victims should shut up and go away.

... The hatred of women is laid bare for all to see, and many who previously rejected the idea that misogyny is this widespread are reeling in shock.

We must hope that this impact of this moment will linger, and people who were previously snookered by the idea that the Kavanaugh debate was about “false allegations” or “due process” will understand that was always nonsense. Feminists aren’t for false allegations, and they have never opposed due process. In fact, feminist demands have been for more due process, precisely because victims are often stopped from getting any hearing for their accusations at all.

The Kavanaugh hearing exposed this reality, as feminists were quite clearly the ones demanding a full investigation and a full process in which all witnesses would be heard, and the Republicans and their base of sexual-abuse apologists were the ones hiding information and refusing to engage a process that might uncover the truth.

No doubt within a few months the pretense that “no one” supports sexual abuse will be restored. We will once again be expected to pretend that there’s some other reason for all this hostility towards anti-rape activism, all this hand-wringing about the #MeToo movement going “too far” and all this resistance to schools disciplining rapists and harassers.