Kate Hawkesby: We need to teach men that what they do as teenagers matters

Brett Kavanaugh and wife Ashley Estes Kavanaugh during a Fox News interview. Photo / AP

COMMENT: Tomorrow in the early hours our time, Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump's pick for the Supreme Court, will front the Senate Judicial Committee.

It will be gripping television. Professor Christine Blasey Ford will testify against Kavanaugh, he will testify against her. It'll no doubt be an epic case of 'he said, she said'.

A circus atmosphere's trying to be avoided, there's talk of limiting cameras and journalist numbers, even conducting the hearing in a smaller sized room than usual.

Blasey Ford, who you'll most likely have formed your own views on, based largely I suspect on your political leanings, has come forward with a sexual assault allegation, which has really only served to wreck her life further.

You have to wonder who does that if they don't one hundred per cent have the courage of their convictions? She's currently in hiding due to death threats.

And in seeing what's happened to her played out in minute detail across American media, how brave would you need to be to come forward with an allegation of your own? And yet Deborah Ramirez has.

So two allegations - and just a couple of hours ago, a third woman's come forward.
Many would say at this point, where there's smoke there's fire.
Many others would say - in fact America's own President has said it - that this is a con job.

Kavanaugh denies it all, I watched his interview with Fox as he repeatedly claimed he never committed sexual assault. It felt Clinton-esque in the repeated learned lines of denial, it felt a bit too scripted and coached.
I accept he would've been under immense pressure, but he sounded robotic.

When I said this on my Newstalk ZB radio show yesterday, I got feedback saying that Clinton was an unfair comparison, that Kavanaugh's done nothing wrong. All bar one piece of that feedback was from men.

The timing of all this, the 'Me Too' movement, Bill Cosby, Trump's handling of it, it's all being watched by women - it will impact how they vote come the November mid-terms.

But guilty or innocent, we need to take a few key learnings out of this.

One, how this process has played out for other silent sex abuse victims, how can we treat them better?

And two, how we educate our young men around their behaviour at high school and university age. We need to be teaching them that what they do at 16, 17, and 18, matters.

Tomorrow will be telling, yes, but the key lessons out of this are already here.