I was 20 during the Thomas confirmation hearings. As a confident aspiring law student, the message being sent to me was “shut up, silly girl.” I rebelled, but it was not easy. Society reinforced this sentiment back then.

After I moved to Utah to attend law school and was suddenly an old maid at 23, I was taking the rightful place of a man in my class. “Step aside, silly girl,” was what was muttered under the breaths of many.

I am honored, and sadly privileged, to be a partner at one of the rare – and possibly only – firms in our state to have an equal number of male and female attorneys. In my office, I’m not dismissed as a “silly girl,” but still face that discrimination in my professional life. Too often.  I cherish the men I went to school with and have practiced with who not only treated me as an equal but were and are my advocate.  This is why after listening to Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony today, I’m having a tough time reconciling what I heard with the accounts by some that he was a champion of women in my profession by giving them equal access to coveted federal clerkships.

Decades later and now squarley in middle age, I still believe Anita. Having listened to most of her testimony, I believe Dr. Blasey Ford.  I wish I could say the same for Mr. Kavanaugh. His moment to come clean and begin to right a wrong has passed.  I still believe someone could have been a complete pig in high school and college, and still turn out to be a fairly decent human being when he grew up and/or sobered up. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.  The problem is, you have to admit you are a sinner.  All I heard today was someone trying to canonize himself.