American women are getting the message as the spectacle of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process continues in Washington: Women are to be ignored.

We will not be ignored. We’re watching. And acting.

This time, it is the voice of Christine Blasey Ford, the Palo Alto University professor who accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a party when she was 15 and he was 17. Her story has been discounted, her morals impugned, her reputation attacked. Kavanaugh has said the accusations are “completely false” and Senate Republicans have sided with him. This, before Ford’s story has even been fully told.

Her testimony, should she give it, will be enormously consequential for her and the nation whether Kavanaugh is confirmed to the court or not.

Her experience with reporting a sexual assault, however, is absolutely typical.

If you doubt that, scan the hundreds of #WhyIDidn’tReport tweets since President Trump tweeted Friday morning “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!”

Here’s a sample of what you’ll find on Twitter:

“I did, it didn’t matter, I was dismissed, disparaged, & I still get blamed,” tweeted one woman, a sentiment shared by many tweeting under that hashtag.

“Because I had never seen a survivor come forward and be treated with dignity, so why would I believe my case would be different?” tweeted @MissAmericaMI.

“I was sexually assaulted as a child by a family member. I am still dealing with it 50 years later. I told my mother who did nothing. It colors the way I think about my body, my status, my worth. I have spent thousands on therapy. Everyday it’s in my mind & body.” @HeartSmithy

The Republican Party will not be unscathed by this dismissiveness of Ford’s serious allegations.

American women will remember the candidate who had boasted of assaulting women and then was elected president.

They will take note of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who, in his rush to confirm Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice, discounted the accuser’s testimony before hearing a word. In fact, while speaking at the Values Voter Summit Friday, McConnell assured attendees that Kavanaugh will be confirmed and thus the court will move one vote closer to overturning America’s abortion law, Roe vs. Wade.

They will see how a woman is cast aside when her truth interferes with a seat on the Supreme Court. Dennis Prager, a syndicated columnist, wrote this week: “I don’t believe her,” but also added: “I am not interested in whether Mrs. Ford, an anti-Trump activist, is telling the truth. Because even if true, what happened to her was clearly wrong, but it tells us nothing about Brett Kavanaugh since the age of 17.”

Why would any woman subject herself to the political buzz saw, to death threats, to trashing on social media?

We don’t know what happened 36 years ago but we deserve to have heard them out in a fair process. And if Kavanaugh did assault Ford 36 years ago and never apologized or acknowledged it was wrong, we need to know that before we name him to the highest court in the land where he judges us, and is a last word on our nation’s laws.

What could possibly justify this rush to confirm, this complete abdication of a fair process? The country must applaud this extraordinary act of courage.

The male-dominated Senate Judiciary Committee’s mistreatment of Anita Hill in 1991 led to the Year of the Woman in the 1992 elections. Here comes the Year of the Woman II.

Women are going to be heard on Nov. 6.