Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh speaks at the Senate Judiciary Committee, Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Michael Reynolds/Pool Image via AP)

This is an opinion column.

I wonder what she was thinking.

I wonder what was going through Ashley's Estes Kavanaugh's mind as she watched her husband's snarling, petulant, tear-stained, whining (My life is ruined) exhibition before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

Heck, I wonder what was on the minds of each of the women occupying the rows behind Brett Kavanaugh, women who were ostensibly there to support his defense against an accusation by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford that he, then a privileged teen kid who liked beer--as he told us many times--sexually assaulted her when she was 15 years old.

Fifteen years old.

I know the women were there as a family member, friend or whatnot.

I know Ashley was there as a dutiful and supportive spouse.

Still, what they were all thinking?

What were they thinking as Kavanaugh and his equally-snarling GOP Judiciary committee supporters essentially said their own white, male privilege is more important than the wrenching pain of Ford's emotional and credible recollections of the assault?

A woman holds up a placard as she joins a protest against the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court Friday, Sept. 28, 2018, outside the office of U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

More than any woman's sexual assault.

I don't know if any of those women sitting behind him in support of Kavanaugh, including Ashley, have friends or relatives who were sexually assaulted in their youth.

I do.

Some have shared their horrid experiences with me--in vivid, technicolor detail.

They remember.

They remember names. They remember pain.

They know their truth.

A truth that still reverberates in their lives, still affects them today--still affects their encounters with others. And will likely affect them tomorrow. And maybe even the next day.

What does that matter to Kavanaugh, a federal judge who feels a seat on the nation's highest court is, perhaps, his birthright?

It clearly does not matter as much as his own privilege and pride. Not as much as his entitled right to demand all he seeks.

It does not matter to GOP Senators as much as the experiences and aching memories of female sexual assault victims--no matter when the assaults occurred--as much as winning.

As much as taking control of the wombs of American women and overturning Roe v.Wade.

To be sure, Kavanaugh has every right to defend himself. He has every right to not take a lie-detector test (as his accuser did) and rail on like a half-drunk adolescent who knew that no matter what he said, or how he said it, his equally privileged kind would have his back.

Imagine if, 27 years ago, Clarence Thomas had acted as such. (Full disclosure, I am not a fan of the now-Supreme Court justice). What if Thomas had cried, snarled and had been as pointedly disrespectful to members of the Senate Judiciary committee as was Kavanaugh?

There were no female Judiciary committee members in 1991 when Anita Hill testified that Thomas sexually harassed her when he was her boss.

What if there had been?

Then what if Thomas had treated her as Kavanaugh so wretchedly and disrespectfully treated Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar?

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018. (Tom Williams/Pool Image via AP)

She asked him if he'd ever blacked out because of alcohol abuse, an occurrence with which she was familiar, she explained, because her father was an alcoholic.

Have you?! Kavanaugh sneered. Sneered with amazing vitriol.

Sneered with anger.

With elite entitlement.

How dare you, he frothed.

His apology--later, after a break, and probably some wise counsel--really didn't matter. What Kavanaugh showed in the moment was who he is.

What Brett Kavanaugh showed in that moment was real.

Real enough to make me wonder if he could ever be impartial if, say, a sexual harassment case ever came before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Thomas was just as mad. He seethed during his rebuttal testimony.

Yet he never exploded/ He didn;t have a childish fit.

Had he performed as Kavanaugh did, had he displayed such anger, disrespect and petulance, well, he'd not likely be sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court now.

No black man today could've gotten away with Kavanaugh's angry display.

Yet privilege just might.

Kavanaugh just might--after a one-week FBI "investigation" that will likely reveal little more to us than Kavanaugh's favorite beer,.

I wonder what the women were thinking.

Maybe they--Ashley and the women who steadfastly support Kavanaugh--believe him, which is their right.

Maybe they don't know any women like Dr. Ford.

I do--and I believe her. I believe her truth.

I wonder if, somewhere in her mind, Ashley Estes Kavanaugh does, too.

Roy S. Johnson's column appears in The Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register and AL.com. Hit me up at rjohnson@al.com or/and follow me at twitter.com/roysj or on Instagram at instagram.com/roysj/.