If you were part of the 45 percent of people who believed Dr. Christine Blasey Ford after she gave her testimony on September 27th, you probably had the same reaction I did when Brett Kavanaugh was admitted into the Supreme Court, and it probably contained some sort of expletive. But that’s neither here nor there. Some claimed that Kavanaugh’s case will dictate how we admit our government officials in the future. It won’t. Kavanaugh was confirmed, and this case will be used as an unfortunate example the next time something like this happens again. Because it will happen again.

Kavanaugh, as a person and a judge, doesn’t matter. He’s fairly conservative, he was accused of doing a really terrible thing, but it doesn’t ultimately affect his career. In short, he’s a politician. The reason this case matters so much is that it paints a picture of how victims of sexual assault are treated. It’s not just an issue of party lines, or who believes the “he said, she said”. It’s an issue of sexual assault victims feeling as if they won’t be believed if they come forward.

There’s definitely a distinction between most sexual assault cases and Kavanaugh’s case, that being most people accused of sexual assault aren’t questioned by the Senate in front of the entire nation. However, almost all cases, including Kavanaugh’s, see the same outcome: the accused face no consequences. For every 1,000 rapes reported, only 6 out of those 1,000 face any jail time. That’s not even considering the countless assaults that are never reported to the police. Victims of assault look at Kavanaugh’s case and see what could be their own. If a man in consideration for the highest appointed position in the country cannot be held accountable, then why should their own accuser be held accountable?

A common response to cases such as Kavanaugh’s is that such allegations are harmful to the accused and could potentially ruin their careers and lives. But is that really true? Yes, Kavanaugh faced backlash for the allegations against him, but he’s still on the Supreme Court, isn’t he? The eerily similar case of Clarence Thomas, who was accused of workplace harassment by Anita Hill, had the exact same outcome. The idea that assault victims only come forward to harm the accused is absurd. Time has proven that such accusations do little damage. While it’s true that some people do fabricate accusations, these cases only make up 8 percent of total assault accusations. These accusations also rarely lead to incarceration or even prosecution. The only reason people are so hesitant to believe assault accusations is because they simply don’t want to.

In the end, it doesn't matter whose testimony you decide to believe. Kavanaugh was confirmed into the Supreme Court. That’s done. However, his confirmation doesn’t mean that it’s the absolute end of integrity as we know it. If he wasn’t confirmed, that wouldn’t mean the end of gender discrimination and victim-shaming. The problem is that victims of sexual assault see cases like these and think they’ll be treated like liars, or like they have some hidden agenda. But most victims of assault are not in the same position as Ford. They don’t have to testify to the Senate, and their perpetrators are not in line to be a Supreme Court Justice. While this isn’t something we can change overnight, we can definitely try our best to create an environment where victims of sexual assault feel like they’ll be believed by their parents, their friends, the police, and their doctors. Let’s actually hold people accountable for a change.