Two women are standing in front of a man, showing him their deep emotional wounds, tearfully pleading with him to see their injuries. He stares at the floor, mumbling about how he has to go to a meeting.

This is what happened when two women – rape survivors and activists – confronted US senator Jeff Flake about his decisive vote to advance Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the US Supreme Court. They wanted to ask why he would support someone accused of sexual assault. It reflects what’s happening to huge numbers of women around the world right now.

Brett Kavanaugh, US Supreme Court nominee, has denied allegations of misconduct from three women. AP

“You’re telling all women that they don’t matter, they should just stay quiet because if they tell you what happened to them, you’re going to ignore them,” one of the women said. “If they tell the truth you’re just going to help that man to power anyway. That’s what you’re telling all women, that’s what you’re telling me right now. Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

He didn’t look at her.

The video is an eviscerating live enactment of how so many women who’ve survived sexual assault feel right now. Ignored. Unsafe. Rejected. Even women who have not been subjected to some form of sexual violence (and there’s not many of them) can feel the vicarious trauma of watching as the world demonstrates how little women matter because defending men’s unfettered access to power is more important than women’s pain and right to safety.

Not all women. But far, far too many women. Women are collectively being pushed to the frontlines of their own and other women’s trauma.

We have struggled through news of what happened to Eurydice Dixon, to Cynda Miles, Katrina Miles and her children, Samantha Fraser, Larissa Beilby. And now Brett Kavanaugh’s outrage at being held to account for his alleged actions while all the men who support him show this is not about whether they believe the three women who’ve accused him of sexual assault, it’s just that it doesn’t matter.

Twenty years ago we watched helplessly as even worse vilification was enacted against Anita Hill. This year we watched helplessly as Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young was slut-shamed in the chamber by a fellow senator and no one could hold him to account for it. We watched helplessly as Saxon Mullins was dragged through seven years of judicial trauma only to be left in a legal grey area of "it wasn’t his fault".

We watch helplessly every week as one woman is killed, and 2000 are hospitalised, and 5000 people call police about family violence. We’ll never know how many women are raped.

Then we have to listen to men talk about how bad it makes them feel when someone asks why is it almost always men who do this?

Dr Ford passed a lie detector test with her allegations about Kavanaugh allegedly sexually assaulting her.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is accused of sexually assaulting Christine Blasey Ford when they were both in high school.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called her “a woman with a problem”. He screamed about the effect of the allegations on Kavanaugh and men everywhere. “This is going to destroy the ability of good people to come forward. Because of this crap. Your high school year book.”

Women have a problem. Men have a future.

It’s traumatising, even more so because it’s almost impossible to not feel helpless in the face of it. What more can we do? We have exposed our raw wounds in support of each other’s injuries and in a desperate effort to be seen, recognised, comforted and redressed.

Some women have given those things to each other.

It’s traumatising all over again to watch the constant assault of men who blame us, disbelieve us, hurl abuse at us for exposing our wounds and hate us for exposing their weapons of power and entitlement. We’re asking, begging, screaming, demanding that men stop defending themselves long enough to recognise the damage they do, and they stare at the ground and mumble.

Trauma and more trauma piled on top of each other, and still we are helpless to stop the barrage of vitriol or silence that meets every plea for understanding.

One of the determining factors in whether someone will suffer PTSD after trauma is the feeling of helplessness at the time of the trauma. Vicarious trauma happens when someone is repeatedly exposed to the trauma of others. It’s a recognised effect for people on the frontlines of violence: police, family violence workers, rape counsellors, therapists.

This is what’s happening to many of us right now: the repeated ongoing assault of women who cannot be heard by men who will not hear.

There are other times and places to talk about solutions, how to attack, how to defend. Then there are the times to just talk about what’s happening, see it for what it is and the effect it has and take a moment to breathe through it.

Then we pick up all our tools and keep going. Because what else can we do?