Christine Blasey Ford was 15. Loretta Weinberg was 13. Jacqueline Cutler was 23. Joan Cavalluzzi was 19. Elyse Rubin was 8.
In the past week, these women have all come forward to talk about their being victims of sexual abuses decades earlier. Like uncounted multitudes all over the nation, they were prompted by Ford having the courage to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about what happened to her those many years ago.
Some names you know. Weinberg's abuse happened 70 years ago, long before she was majority leader of the New Jersey Senate or White House aide Kellyanne Conway, who added herself of the roster of sexual assault victims..
Other names are unfamiliar, like Cavalluzzi and Rubin, who have told their stories in the Voice of the People these last days, as did Cutler, who this Sunday in these pages wrote a column about having been raped.
Or the women who were spontaneously calling in to staid C-SPAN during Ford's testimony last week.
While men are invariably the perpetrators, victims can be also be male, as the sex abuse and coverup scandal that has ripped the Catholic Church has shown.
What every one of these victim/survivors has _ long after any physical evidence is gone _ are lifelong mental and emotional scars. And memories that, while imperfect, do not fade.
