In response, I was happy to vote for both Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein in 1992, the so-called “Year of the Woman.” But that brutal autumn of 1991, I realized more clearly than ever before that we women really are regarded as second-class citizens in this world, which kept me from speaking publicly, beyond my family and close friends, about what had happened to me for another two decades.

I have heard that for every person who talks about an experience of sexual violence, there are at least 100 others who never will. On Thursday, I think Dr. Blasey’s voice was amplified to represent millions.

Five years ago, right after my story was published, I got about 100 emails from people I didn’t know, telling me their all-too-similar stories. They ranged from teenage girls to a woman in her 70s, who was still grappling with what a boy had done to her in high school. I also got another 50 or so similar messages from friends and acquaintances. And one man told me how he almost attacked a vulnerable girl at a drunken high school party, but he found that he simply couldn’t do it, and then felt bad for years, like maybe he wasn’t a real man, because everything in our culture told him he had missed a great opportunity.

This year, I received a letter from the other guy in the room when I was raped. He was writing to ask me for absolution. He told me he was a good man despite what he had done back then. I didn’t write him back because I could not give him what he wanted, and felt no need to explain. I haven’t heard from anyone else in that room that night.

As the Kavanaugh story has unfolded, people have said that something a guy did at a drunken party in high school shouldn’t follow him around for the rest of his life. Maybe. But what if that thing he did hurt someone else, and has followed that person around for her whole life?

I stopped watching Thursday’s hearing after Dr. Blasey’s testimony. I recorded the rest and will look at it some other time. But whatever happens, I hope enough senators get it into their own hippocampi that Dr. Blasey has given us all a chance to break a vicious cycle in our country.

Many young people who have experienced sexual assault watched the hearing. And what happens next will influence them far beyond this Supreme Court, this midterm election, even this president. Please, senators, do not vote a man into a lifetime of ultimate authority over us all who could possibly be, like Clarence Thomas, a constant, indelible reminder that this country will favor a man’s power and entitlement at the expense of a woman’s voice and body every time.

Please, in the name of those of us who have been reliving recent or decades-old trauma this month, do not empower another man who could lead yet another generation of young people to forget their own value and strength, and remain silent and afraid, as I once did.

Emily Yellin is a journalist, author and most recently the producer of “1,300 Men,” a video series on TheRoot.com about the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion).