All weekend I’ve been seeing posts of celebration after the Senate vote and confirmation. I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, Christian or atheist, black, white or Asian, woman or man, this is not a time for celebrating.

I don’t much discuss politics because the in-fighting and arguing and the back and forth is a circus of which I do not wish to be a part of but after not being able to avoid the political quagmire of the previous week that culminated in Brett Kavanaugh being sworn in, I found myself unable to sleep with the thoughts swirling around in my head. So, here I am.

As the mother of a teenage daughter, my job is hard enough trying to help her navigate the murky waters into adulthood. But how do you explain to your daughter that, in spite of the events of this previous week, if someone were to hurt her, it would be safe for her to speak up?

Just as I can’t promise my 13-year-old that she’ll be safe from sexual assault, I cannot promise that if it does happen, she won’t be ridiculed, mocked, insulted, and bullied for reporting it. I cannot promise her that if she were to bravely stand up against what everyone else is doing and under immense pressure to follow suit (as Senator Murkowski did), she wouldn’t be told that people would “never forgive her,” and essentially lose her job for it.

This issue I have here is not rooted in a he said/she said battle. I was not there that night and I certainly don’t believe everything I hear in the media. My issue is in how we act as humans. Until we can actually treat ALL people (no matter their party affiliation, their gender, their sexual preference or their race) with kindness, respect, and dignity, whether at a high school party, in a Senate hearing, at the grocery store or on social media, we are never going to find common ground. We live in a world where sexual assault is commonplace, where accusations are commonplace, and where people believe that their political views give them a free pass to be an asshole.

This is not a time for celebrating that “your guy won.” There is no winning here.