Anita Hill is a rock:
In 1992, I bought Sonic Youth’s Dirty along with a pile of CDs through one of those mail order CD clubs that were basically our only source of non-country or non-pop-schlock music out in the boondocks of West Texas. The song “Youth Against Fascism” referenced the recent Senate hearings for Clarence Thomas’ confirmation as a Supreme Court justice.
Black robe and swill
I believe Anita Hill
Judge will rot in hell
It’s the song I hate, it’s the song I hate
That lyric floored me. It was a defiant declaration—from a man, no less, which I think really shocked me—that women can actually just be believed. The very idea was foreign to me. Saying that you believed a woman over a man was basically outside of my realm of understanding. A woman says, “He raped me/abused me/harassed me,” and he denies it, there was no question of who was telling the truth. Even if she looked you in the eye and he made shifty eyes and otherwise indicated in every way that he was lying. Even if it was abundantly clear that she had no reason to accuse a man, knowing full well that she’d be the worse for it, and her only realistic motivation was to get the truth out there. The standard dismissal of that was ye ol’ bitches-are-crazy, women are insane and will do anything for attention, women get some secret glee out of being treated like pariahs, because women are not really human like men and we can safely say that women behave out of alien instincts that have no rhyme or reason to them. You believed that women were born liars even if you were a woman and knew that it wasn’t true. You believed that every woman who accused a man was lying, even if deep in your heart you suspected that she was telling the god’s honest truth. To say, “I believe the woman,” was to say that the Civil War was fought over slavery instead of some vague principle of “states rights”. To say you believe a woman was to say that there was an elephant in the middle of the room, the elephant that you knew was not to be mentioned at all costs.
“Youth Against Fascism” was farting in church. It scared me and secretly thrilled me. I would skip the track sometimes, afraid the heresy would penetrate my brain. I would not admit to myself for many years that I too believed Anita Hill, that the same people who mandated in my life that you never, ever believe that a rape or sexual harassment actually happened, that all female accusers were attention-craving hysterics, also anxiously watched over me to protect me from those supposedly imaginary ills. There is no elephant in the middle of the room and you girls be careful around that elephant. Tell me if the elephant touches you but don’t tell anyone else.
The song was just one of many little chips away at the block of sculpting me into a heretic. Now I commit heresy for sport. Your god is a fairy tale. Rape victims are telling the truth. No one actually believes in some deep principle of “states’ rights”. “Free market capitalism” is a prettified term for a modern version of feudalism and is the opposite of freedom. I believe Anita Hill.
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“There is no elephant in the middle of the room and you girls be careful around that elephant. Tell me if the elephant touches you but don’t tell anyone else.”
Anita Hill gave her testimony the same year that I spent afraid to tell my parents what my little brother was doing. The same year that I was told I wouldn’t be taking science the next year because the teacher was…well it was never fully explained what he was but we all knew. Especially the niece that later got him put away for child molestation.
Anita Hill has always been my hero.
It’s nice to now I’m not the only one.
Nice post.
Anita Hill is also one of those people and subjects that serves as a dog whistle. Somebody doesn’t believe her? Well, you know what you’re dealing with, don’t you?
Oh, my God, this post is just way too good.
“It was a defiant declaration—from a man, no less, which I think really shocked me—that women can actually just be believed. The very idea was foreign to me. Saying that you believed a woman over a man was basically outside of my realm of understanding. A woman says, “He raped me/abused me/harassed me,” and he denies it, there was no question of who was telling the truth. Even if she looked you in the eye and he made shifty eyes and otherwise indicated in every way that he was lying. Even if it was abundantly clear that she had no reason to accuse a man, knowing full well that she’d be the worse for it, and her only realistic motivation was to get the truth out there. The standard dismissal of that was ye ol’ bitches-are-crazy, women are insane and will do anything for attention, women get some secret glee out of being treated like pariahs, because women are not really human like men and we can safely say that women behave out of alien instincts that have no rhyme or reason to them. You believed that women were born liars even if you were a woman and knew that it wasn’t true. You believed that every woman who accused a man was lying, even if deep in your heart you suspected that she was telling the god’s honest truth. To say, “I believe the woman,” was to say that the Civil War was fought over slavery instead of some vague principle of “states rights”. To say you believe a woman was to say that there was an elephant in the middle of the room, the elephant that you knew was not to be mentioned at all costs.
“Youth Against Fascism” was farting in church. It scared me and secretly thrilled me. I would skip the track sometimes, afraid the heresy would penetrate my brain. I would not admit to myself for many years that I too believed Anita Hill, that the same people who mandated in my life that you never, ever believe that a rape or sexual harassment actually happened, that all female accusers were attention-craving hysterics, also anxiously watched over me to protect me from those supposedly imaginary ills. There is no elephant in the middle of the room and you girls be careful around that elephant. Tell me if the elephant touches you but don’t tell anyone else.”
Years and years ago I used to laugh at women-sneering jokes too, not the ones that were UTTERLY blatant of course, but the more subtle ones. I also used to force myself to read or watch the most disgusting woman-hating shit–sometimes blatant, sometimes not–because it was touted as A Great/Funny/Daring/whatever book or movie because, you know, I could handle The Truth About Women and even Laugh About It. One of the bigger growth moments in my life personally was realizing the essence of what you say above. Thanks again for this post.
I can overempathize with the part about the MAN being the one to actually say it too…of course I had internalized so long ago I can’t even say when it happened, that the Truth about anything to do with women as a whole was something that had to be validated by a man. Or it was just women saying whatever, you know, to get over. A Woman Thing. Not a Real Human thing, because the only things like that were things that either both men and women or only men said.
That Anita Hill interview is awesome.
I don’t think that level of misogyny — the woman is never to be believed — is all that universal. My upbringing wasn’t exactly woman-affirming, but I think most of my male peers would have had a tendency to believe a woman in the case of rape or abuse, and it would be well after my teens until I moved someplace where that viewpoint wasn’t the norm. Maybe it was a side-effect of race. Growing up, the default was “white people lie — especially white men,” so if the alleged offender was either a) white or b) associated with whites (e.g., an oreo like Thomas) then the assumption is, all things being equal, that asshole is lying. And whites being the majority, the accused was usually white. So maybe it was prejudice against a powerful majority, not an honest view of women, that led to the effect. In any event, I do not think Amanda’s experience is universal in the U.S., though it well may be the majority.
Damn. I can’t believe that I’m the one to bring this up but why did it take a male saying that he believed Anita Hill to validate her truthfulness?
I guess as a man who believed her from the beginning, that’s another aspect of the patriarchy enforced beliefs that I have yet to learn.
It turns my stomach to think of how Hill was treated, by the politicians and by the media. Her book is heartbreaking, and anyone who thinks Biden might make a good president ought to read it.
The fact is, her account was corroborated by multiple sources. No motivation could be found for her to lie, so the ridiculous “crazy stalker” lies were invented to explain it. And a lot of the things Thomas said in his book were either obvious lies (never thought about or discussed whether or not abortion should be legal) or were proven false (did not watch pornographic movies).
So now Thomas has written a whole book of lies? Great. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the media to expose him.
Paula Jones is also one of those people and subjects that serves as a dog whistle. Somebody doesn’t believe her? Well, you know what you’re dealing with, don’t you?
Oh, look, let’s bring up Clinton’s blowjob. What’s the matter, seroj, never got one yourself?
I hate to say it, but at the time of the Thomas hearings I considered myself to be a libertarian Republican (please, spare me the brickbats, I left that behind a long time ago, and I was never the kind of dumbass that most people who claim that title now are), and I’m not proud to say that at that time, I didn’t believe Anita Hill, or at the very least, I thought both sides were probably shading the truth for their own benefit. At the time, my mother lit into me for that. She was right, and sometimes momma knows best. I believe Anita Hill.
And Dirty is a great Sonic Youth album, though Goo is still my favorite. Ah, this whole conversation is bringing up all sorts of early 90s memories, good and not-so-good.
ginmar, you must be thinking of Monica Lewinsky, not Paula Jones.
I think it’s a fair question to ask why feminists automatically believe Anita Hill but automatically disbelieve Paula Jones.
I just need to give a shout out to my alma mater Brandeis for recruiting her. It’s a school with a lot of pre-law undergrads, an intellectual/activist bent, and a large women’s studies program. I love that Anita Hill is there today.
i only remember the anita hill stuff a little, i was pretty young, but i remember my mom believed her and she was the only person i had heard of who did and i remember being freaked out by my mom believing her, its all sort of blurry, my mom had a cassette tape of some song supporting her that a friend gave her and i just remember feeling like my mom was doing something very wrong by believing her and by having that tape, like somehow she would get in trouble for it. its all tied up with the other experiences of being a kid back then, my mom and i running away from my abusive father, puberty and ostracization and harrassment from my “peers”, riding the bus and hearing everyone tell magic johnson AIDS jokes and wishing really badly that i could dissapear.
seroj,
Well one reason is the Paula Jones law suit was tossed out under summary judgment for the defendant. So obviously at least one federal judge felt the whole thing was a crock of shit.
Seroj -
Because David Brock admits state troopers were paid to support Jones’ story?
Seroj: I think it’s a fair question to ask why feminists automatically believe Anita Hill but automatically disbelieve Paula Jones.
Asking the question proves you a troll, seroj.
1. You presume (wrongly) that “feminists” uniformly disbelieved Paula Jones.
2. You presume (wrongly) that any feminist who disbelieved Paula Jones did so automatically.
You are bringing up Paula Jones not because you yourself actually care about women sexually harassed by men, but because (like the Republicans who backed Paula Jones’s case against Clinton) you see this as a convenient stick to beat Clinton with, then to beat “feminists” with.
It’s a “fair question” to ask if you want your trollishness made clear for all to see, Seroj.
Also, of course, if you want to turn this into a threadjack about the Clenis rather than discuss how Anita Hill was treated by the male Establishment for talking about how Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her.
OK seroj, I’ll bite. I believe both Anita Hill and Paula Jones. Both of them were subject to inappropriate advances by powerful men, and in both cases they were subject to unfair attacks from political partisans. The difference between them is that Clinton, despite his personal failings, actually made life better for the majority of American women. Thomas has acted in a manner completely congruous with his personal failings and has made things worse for all Americans by pushing the supreme court in a hard right direction.
Why Supreme Court justices can be appointed for life without the need for a supermajority in the Senate is beyond me.
*Not feeding the troll. Not feeding the troll. Not feeding the troll*
The first time I ever saw “I believe Anita Hill” buttons was at the pro-choice rally in DC in 1992. Though I was an avowed feminist, even then, I was hesitant to admit that I found her, and not Thomas, credible in public. I allowed the dialogue to be overtaken by the uninformed complaints of males who decried the “11th hour attack” on Thomas. That was the official talking point IIRC: Anita Hill was a political operative who was trotted out at the last minute to derail a good man. And people bought it.
But I always believed her. Amanda, I like your analogy of the elephant in the room in this case. How is it that women can be warned about the dangers of the elephant at all times, yet not believed when the elephant does something?
“Well one reason is the Paula Jones law suit was tossed out under summary judgment for the defendant.”
Your facts are wrong. Jones appealed the dismissal and Clinton coughed up $850,000 to make it go away. Most of us don’t settle for that kind of money when we are innocent.
Moreover, as Anita Hill never even bothered to take Thomas to court, how does her case stack up with an $850,000 settlement, when evaluating the relative claims of the two women?
“I believe both Anita Hill and Paula Jones.”
togolosh is a fair-minded person. A rarity indeed.
Lisa, I can relate. I have to admit to many instances of not voicing my opinion on something until I’d heard at least one man express something similar.
I also appreciate what you said about watching woman-hating dreck because it’s popular or considered cool. I stopped watching Bill Maher recently. I don’t care how good his guests are or what a darling of the anti-war left he is. He is a rank misogynist and cannot go a single show without saying something vile about women. Jon and Stephen are way funnier, anyway.
This is interesting (and sad) to revisit, coming on the heels of Auguste’s commentary on Emmet Till, where a one-time glance and a whistle crossing the color line continually get brought up as if it’s a built in defence for senseless, entitled murder above the law.
No, the transitory harmless stuff isn’t close to what sexual harassment is (which wasn’t at all what the murdering RW loons pretend justified the brutal murder, nor the kind of one-time trivial gestures that harassers like to think they’re getting hammered for doing.)
I remember being glued to the Thomas hearing. Amazing how the wingnuts lost their sense of chivalry in defending Hill’s honor here, isn’t it?
Seroj, your presence here only reinforces the notion that wingnuts and anti-feminists have no life and lash out at the rest of us because you’re so damn bitter. Unlike Anita Hill, Paula Jones was groomed to come up with her accusations. There seems to be a strong possibility that the right, having long believed in the fantasy of the woman who lies for ulterior reasons, ended up creating one. Is she lying? If there’s anyone in the world who has an actual reason to lie, it’s Paula Jones, willed into existence by the very people who lie about the truth-tellers out there.
It’s fascinating that assholes like seroj think every single woman in the world is lying about sexual harassment except quite possibly the one who might be. It’s like they live in Mirrorland.
“Seroj, your presence here only reinforces the notion that wingnuts and anti-feminists have no life and lash out at the rest of us because you’re so damn bitter.”
Howso? It seems entirely appropriate to bring up Paula Jones in a thread about sexual harrassment. Why wouldn’t a feminist support both women? It’s clearly not the case, as the comments above show.
I find it intesting that feminists believe Hill but not Jones. Togolosh provided a decent answer, in that he/she believes them both, but because Clinton is a democrat his sexual harrassment is not as important. This seems like the true answer.
I was only 11 at the time, but I remember sitting on the stoop with my conservative mother and our hippie next door neighbor while they talked about the case. I can’t recall the exact words spoken, but the gist was that they both believed her, because this stuff happened all the time. They’d seen it happen to friends, maybe even to themselves, and so of course it could’ve happened to Hill. It was also a given that no one ever believed the woman’s story.
Oh gosh, seroj, if you want this to stop happening, write this every morning:
I will not change the subject
I will not change the subject
I will not change the subject…
…a hundred times.
I think the awesome thing that Anita Hill lays bare is that if you’re right, it doesn’t matter how big the stupid is. You’re still right. You can just walk around being right, all over the place, and people can throw the first stone from a catapult and it still won’t knock you down. The dog whistle calls a lot of people in Clarence Thomas’s sexual harassment case; not only did people try to score “i’m not racist” points by defending him, they tried to score “i’m not sexist” points by letting him call his case a “high-tech lynching.” which is funny, because no one was ever lynched for allegedly assaulting a black woman.
i remember when Lani Guinier went down after her confirmation hearings, she called it “a low-tech lynching.” those were the days.
“i remember when Lani Guinier went down after her confirmation hearings, she called it “a low-tech lynching.” those were the days.”
That would be a surprising memory, considering Clinton withdrew her nomination before she even had a confirmation hearing.
Now I commit heresy for sport. Your god is a fairy tale. Rape victims are telling the truth. No one actually believes in some deep principle of “states’ rights”. “Free market capitalism” is a prettified term for a modern version of feudalism and is the opposite of freedom. I believe Anita Hill.
Hallelujah and Amen; and thank you for saying this.
Bye, seroj. Bad faith thread-jacking in order to derail useful conversation is something I’ve been recently persuaded is not something I have to condone.
Of course, women don’t get lynched, silly. Only men do.
And of course the guy who helped create the Paula Jones myth, David Brock, has since recanted it all. Nevertheless for seroj, the only important thing is the Clenis.
I guess I’ll have to amend my statement to include along with assholes who can’t stop changing the subject to Clinton and the rightwingnuts’ attempt to impeach him.
1. Clinton, unlike Thomas, was being threatened with impeachment at the time, and the congressional Republicans said they might vote against impeachment if the lawsuit was no longer pending. (a lie, yes, but what else is new?)
2. Jones didn’t come forward with her accusation when Clinton stepped out on the national stage, like Hill did with Thomas. She waited until an obscure article in an obscure magazine.
3. She and her husband then tried to blackmail Clinton by offering to stay silent in return for acting jobs in Hollywood.
3. It’s kinda hard to believe that Jones is just interested in her chaste “reputation” when Brock’s article only mentioned her first name. And she gleefully posed for nude pictures for Hustlet afterward.
4. Not only did she get 850.000$ from the lawsuit, she demanded another 1 million from a millionaire who offered it to her if she settled. Such greed kind of undercuts her claim.
Funny, I don’t recall Hill blackmailing Thomas. Or demanding millions. Or posing nude to rescue her “good name”. Yet seroj seems to think Jones and hill are both heros or both lying skanks, just because they’re both women. Go figure.
seroj
We know you are a troll, you know you are a troll.
But anyhoo…
Paula Jones basically obliterated any shred of credibility she had when she took money to pose nude in Penthouse.
I am not saying that every single woman who poses nude is to be automatically not believed or deserves to be harassed but it certainly shows where Occam’s Razor should be applied.
Everything else stated about Jones in this thread such as her being coached and used by right wing nutbars and her being in it for the money is unequivocally true and documented.
All you are trying to do is say “Look, over there!” and whining when people laugh at you.
#456! Hustler, not Hustlet.
HA! Can we say “welfare reform” anybody? That was Clinton’s baby, and some of us will never forgive him for it.
I’m sorry, togolosh, I don’t mean to dump on you, but the overwhelming majority of people who are being harmed by welfare reform are women and their children.
And I guess I just took part in seroj’s total threadjack, and I apologize.
I believe Anita Hill too.
You’re right, UmYeah, it was Penthouse, not Hustlet. You remember that one, don’t you, ser? The one where Jones admits she was used by the Far Right?
On the other hand, anything that can make Ann Coulter burst into tears is OK in my book.
Amanda, normally, I resent a particular Kate for asking for bunnies.
In this case, I would ask for it as well. Seroj is clearly attempting to disrupt the conversation, specifically.
oh, too late.
but thanks…I was enjoying the thread until it became about clinton…again…
I was convinced that Hill was telling the truth at the time and still am. I just didn’t see how the things that she was saying would be invented in the mind of a woman. Men are the ones who think up the kinds of things Thomas said to her.
When women do talk about erotic fashion, it sounds waaaaayyyyy different.
Partisanship and sexism sure did triumph basic common sense on the Anita Hill story.
I was in Middle School during the hearings, and maybe it was because I was young, but I never thought to doubt Anita Hill was telling the truth. That wasn’t the impression I got of what was going on. My impression was more that the people who wanted Clarence Thomas to be on the supreme court were very angry that she was bringing this up. I I mean, even as a 12-year old girl you realize the great amount of sacrifice it takes for a woman to speak up about such matters.
But now I recall that was also the year I got boobs, so well, I already had a pretty good idea how “respectable” men could act if they thought they weren’t going to get caught.
I was also disturbed that a grown man would joke about pubes in coke cans, and I never looked at soda pop quite the same again.
I know Seroj has been banned, but one final note:
togolosh is a fair-minded person. A rarity indeed.
Seroj is being ridiculous here. I agree with Togolosh: I see no reason not to believe Paula Jones’ account was substantially true - and there’s no denying Clinton went far beyond being the Clueless Het Guy in his approach to her. But if Seroj was actually interested in what “feminists” think about Paula Jones, the obvious approach would be to ask some feminists.
Plus, I get to link to a rather good post by Hilzoy on this topic.
I remember being afraid to pay too much attention because it would hurt to know how much they hate us.
I believe Anita Hill.
I get the feeling that the heresy is more from this camp? rather from those who don’t live their lives based on recipes from a big fat book. I suspect, that by their definition, Anita Hill could not possibly be a real woman.
Plus, I get to link to a rather good post by Hilzoy on this topic.
Hilzoy didn’t write that.
I will say the Paula Jones thing is interesting, because it was so clearly concocted because Republicans were furious about the Clarence Thomas hearings and the potential it represented in the Year of the Woman—that the tacit acceptance of sexual harassment that protects (as we’ve since seen) Republicans a lot more than Democrats might come to an end. Now, I’m not saying Paula Jones was lying, but if she was, you can really see why Republicans recruited her for a tactical advantage. From their viewpoint, it was win/win—reinforce the notion that women who accuse men of harassment are only doing it for ulterior motives, and get Clinton at the same time.
On the whole, I think it backfired. For one thing, if you buy Jones’ story, it’s only because sexual harassment is so common that even the most implausible accusations are likely to be true, statistically speaking. Which reinforced the notion that these accusations should be taken seriously.
Also, since conservatives think that it’s the sex that’s the problem and not the consent, they felt that they could easily transfer the issue from a real harassment case that ended up being unproveable to a case of consensual sex. Which gave “the feminists” a real opportunity to drive home the point that it’s not sex that we are struggling against—far from it (see: who defends reproductive rights)—but assault, abuse, harassment, etc. Meanwhile, the country got a full eyeball of how prudish Republicans really are.
It does well to remember the Lewinsky debacle did not do well by Republicans—Gore did in fact win the election, forcing Bush to take the country through what amounts to a judicial coup. I think the biggest blunder of Gore’s campaign is quite possibly listening to the frantic political consultants who just wouldn’t believe that the persecution of Clinton made people sympathize with him. Had he not distanced himself from Clinton, he might have won by a more comfortable margin.
The assumption that Americans are knee jerk prudes still permeates the Democratic party, which is why they seem so damn eager to posture about being “pro-life”, i.e. sex-phobic. It’s absolutely baffling, right up there with the trying to out-god each other in a country where the solid majority of Americans only go to church on the holidays to make Grandma happy.
The Thomas hearings took place around the time of a family funeral. It was interesting to me at the time that the women in my family believed Clarence Thomas and the men believed Professor Hill, to a person.
Amanda, I don’t claim to know West Texas - from your description, it sounds like this swamp-dwelling Marylander is not missing much. The deep misogyny regarding women’s fundamental lack of perceived credibility is not as rooted here in liberal Maryland, I suspect, as in West Texas, though perhaps I am wrong.
Joseph. Fucking. Lieberman. By far the largest error of his campaign.
The thing that really pisses me off about the Thomas nomination process is that the man was both manifestly unqualified and clearly an ideological conservative who would put results before process. The Democrats caved as they always do. Even if Anita Hill had never shown up (and she was IMO completely credible) Thomas should have been denied confirmation. The Democrats new damn well who they were voting for when they put him on the court. I worry that the testimony of Anita Hill distracted the public from Thomas’ lack of qualifications and judicial temperament and put the focus on the sexual harassment issue.
My impression was more that the people who wanted Clarence Thomas to be on the supreme court were very angry that she was bringing this up.
Well, to be fair, “She’s lying,” is shorthand for, “She needs to shut the fuck up because her petty concerns about the human dignity of women are troublesome to this big important man.” A lot of the time I’ve heard people suggest some victim was lying and then immediately admit that the rape/harassment probably happened. The Kobe Bryant case was rife with, “She’s lying and she knew what would happen (i.e. rape) if she went into the room with him.”
Of course I agree, but I bring up how I thought of it at the time because that was my first experience with that “She’s lying” shorthand, when it was pretty obvious even to a young person like myself that she couldn’t be lying. I guess I meant to say that I never doubted her statements, and was shocked that people outside of the hearing room honestly did. It was eye-opening, to say the least.
Thers: I was actually thinking of the comment by Hilzoy (and some subsequent comments) but yeah.
I was just fresh out of college at the time. I had the bumpersticker. I believed her then, and I believe her now. And you know who else believed her? My Republican mom, who was, if anything, even more livid than I was at how those pompous assholes in the Senate treated her.
Great post, Amanda. The Anita Hill hearings were sort of a turning point in my life. I was in college at the time, and we were watching them in the dorm. I remember the guys saying “if it was so bad, why didn’t she just quit?” That’s when I went on to argue that Anita Hill shouldn’t have to quit, Thomas should be forced to leave - did they think opportunities like that grew on trees? We commenced to having pretty much a loud vociferous argument. I think this was the first time it really struck me that I was different (meaning non-mainstream). I couldn’t believe that people would think what Thomas was doing was o.k., but people still think that.
BTW, I believed Paula Jones, but I do have reservations about her. I don’t think what happened rose to level of sexual harassment, as in Hill’s case.
Jesurgislac, just for sake of mentioning it, I liked your comments on that ObWi thread, especially pointing out the RW distortion of the Steinem editorial.
It’s good to see Anita Hill pushing back against the slime machine. Takes a lot of courage to keep your dignity against the prevailing power juggernaut, but it certainly helps if your right. Her determination reminds me of Susan McDougal, one of my favorite persecuted personalities.
I was a junior in high school when this song came out, incredibly politically ignorant, and the “I believe Anita Hill” line struck me like a brick. I barely paid attention to the hearings, but I knew that Thomas was a black man and, at the time, this seemed to put him beyond reproach. The idea that a woman could stand up to him like this, and that a band like Sonic Youth, who I loved, could back her, was astonishing to me. It changed my entire worldview. My father has long been a traditional American conservative, and this song polarized us against each other for months. We reconciled quickly, but it remains the moment in my life when I became a person of the left (those on the right who want to blame this on “liberal” colleges, sorry–I was an astronomy major). Thank you Kim, Thurston, Steve, and Lee.
I was in the middle of my art career and trapped in the studio, struggling to finish a corporate commission during the Thomas hearings. I believed Anita Hill (and grew to hate Arlen Spector, who was not a reasonable moderate but Orrin Hatch’s brother in arms). Her story was the sort of stuff my late wife endured from crude guys. And let me strongly recommend Jane Meyer and Jill Abramson’s “Strange Justice, the Selling of Clarence Thomas” http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Justice-Selling-Clarence-Thomas/dp/0452274990
for info on the other women who could corroborate Hill’s story, but who were sandbagged and not called at the last minute.
The part I don’t get is that in that angry “high tech lynching ‘ statement by Thomas, he threatened to ‘remember’ those that had done him wrong, and it seemed to include any Liberal group. Shouldn’t he recuse himself whenever the (e.g.) ACLU or Planned Parenthood comes before the court?
(sorry if the first part of this is a double post - it’s not showing up)
“I mean, even as a 12-year old girl you realize the great amount of sacrifice it takes for a woman to speak up about such matters.”
I think that especially as a twelve year old girl you realize this.
One of the things that Mary Piper and Carol Gilligan talk about is how girls spend a decent part of their teen years learning to silence their own experiences and opinions, the kinds of experiences and opinions that make it really hard to not believe Prof. Hill. Girls on the edge and beginning of puberty will often have a clearer understanding of sexism and similar gender issues than many adults do. They are just beginning to see the gap between what people say and what they do, and so they are also not quite through learning how to ignore this gap in order to survive in the patriarchy.
“And you know who else believed her? My Republican mom, who was, if anything, even more livid than I was at how those pompous assholes in the Senate treated her.”
Which is a big part of why her coming forward scared the Republicans (and more than a few Democrats) so much. Remember that the year of the Woman Amanda mentions was largely a result of women getting pissed and voting female candidates into office in record numbers.
(end of possible double post)
Which is part of why I remarked to someone today that Thomas must be very stupid. Or, at the the Republicans are very stupid for not pressuring him to put the book off for a while.
Women (most of us anyway) believe Anita Hill.
Last time around, women got pissed enough to vote more women into office.
The Republicans may be going up against a female presidential candidate for the first time in about 12 months. Do they really want to bring up Anita Hill now?
Please, please, please do.
(sorry if the first part of this is a double post - it’s not showing up)
“I mean, even as a 12-year old girl you realize the great amount of sacrifice it takes for a woman to speak up about such matters.”
I think that especially as a twelve year old girl you realize this.
One of the things that Mary Piper and Carol Gilligan talk about is how girls spend a decent part of their teen years learning to silence their own experiences and opinions, the kinds of experiences and opinions that make it really hard to not believe Prof. Hill. Girls on the edge and beginning of puberty will often have a clearer understanding of sexism and similar gender issues than many adults do. They are just beginning to see the gap between what people say and what they do, and so they are also not quite through learning how to ignore this gap in order to survive in the patriarchy.
“And you know who else believed her? My Republican mom, who was, if anything, even more livid than I was at how those pompous assholes in the Senate treated her.”
Which is a big part of why her coming forward scared the Republicans (and more than a few Democrats) so much. Remember that the year of the Woman Amanda mentions was largely a result of women getting pissed and voting female candidates into office in record numbers.
(end of possible double post)
Which is part of why I remarked to someone today that Thomas must be very stupid. Or, at the the Republicans are very stupid for not pressuring him to put the book off for a while.
Women (most of us anyway) believe Anita Hill.
Last time this mess was brought up, women got pissed enough to vote more women into office.
The Republicans may be going up against a female presidential candidate for the first time in about 12 months. Do they really want to bring up Anita Hill now?
Please, please, please do.
BTW, I believed Paula Jones, but I do have reservations about her. I don’t think what happened rose to level of sexual harassment, as in Hill’s case.
Interesting.
Hill is entirely believable.
But the people dismissing Jones here appear to be, in part, doing so for classist reasons. On the face of it, her story appears quite plausible regardless of what was made of it by the Right later on.
Consider: BTW, I believed Paula Jones, but I do have reservations about her. I don’t think what happened rose to level of sexual harassment, as in Hill’s case.
If you believe Jones, then you believe Clinton called her into a room for a meeting - and then showed her his erection and asked her to kiss it. What is that if not sexual harassment?
Consider: Now, I’m not saying Paula Jones was lying, but if she was, you can really see why Republicans recruited her for a tactical advantage.
Whether or not Jones was made use of by the pricks trying to tear Clinton down has no bearing on whether or not she was lying about an event that happened before Clinton was President.
The fact that Jones took the money and posed for Penthouse doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not she was lying or not.
The fact that Clinton was a good President who did a considerable amount for American women has no bearing on whether or not Jones was lying.
Hill is totally believable because there are reports of boorish behaviour *worse* than that of Thomas on a daily basis, and Thomas appears to be a typical powerful right-winger in love with his own righteousness.
Jones is also believable in that Clinton was a powerful man with a strong libido who has believed in his power as an aphrodisiac.
That’s not dismissing Clinton’s considerable ability as a politician and a leader, nor that he was deliberately hunted by bastards who put partisan politics over the good of, well, everything else. But his flaws were there, they were very very real, and Jones’ story is in line with them.
So I find the reasons people are putting forward to believe Hill but not Jones interesting. As far as I can tell, both of them seem to have been telling the truth (apart from the Right wing running with the Jones story later and inflating it).
But Hills is a professor and Jones has posed for Penthouse.
And of course the guy who helped create the Paula Jones myth, David Brock, has since recanted it all. Nevertheless for seroj, the only important thing is the Clenis.
And, hmmm, who was the one who concocted the whole “Real Anita Hill” thing?
I went looking for some evidence to back up my assertion on a Feministe thread about Hill that she was under subpoena and testified only reluctantly and upon threat of being outed if she didn’t (since a troll who brought up Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey and Jones disbelieved me). I didn’t find many original sources (except for an excerpt from the Abramson book), but I did find an interesting factoid which I’d forgotten. Joe Biden, who IIRC was the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time, allowed Thomas to respond to Hill’s charges before Hill ever got a chance to testify. Unusual, unprecedented, and IMHO, unethical. Not to mention, one more reason why the Senator from MBNA should never become President.
And I never had a problem believing Hill’s account - as a union delegate, I’ve read up on considerably worse behaviour than Thomas’s being considered “normal” up to the point where a sexual harassment complaint is laid.
Oh, Phoe, Phoe, Phoe,
That straw “classist” argument looks good, but that’s all it is; straw. If you had to sit through as many Jones press conferences I as have, (and listening to her whiny, screechy voice shriek “what Clinton was WROONG!” made me realize why she tried to blackmail Clinton for acting jobs) then you’d realize her total hypocrisy. She wasn’t in it to defend her reputation; (nobody knew who she was) she was in it to wring as much money and fame out of it as possible. That was what made her such a perfect tool for the “pricks” of the Far Right.
I don’t care whether one posed for Penthouse or one was a law professor, just like I don’t care whether you like Big Macs or you’re an animal rights vegan. However, if Paul shoots a McDonald’s employee in the name of vegan pro-animal rights, then a week later is found chowing down on a Big Mac, then Paul isn’t an idealist; he’s a hypocrite. Paula isn’t a down home girl trying to protect her good name; she’s a hypocrite.
Paula Jones started out by trying the extortion route with Clinton. She wanted money from the get go and she surrounded herself with rightwingnuts. Yeah, nothing fishy there at all. Not to mention that rabid pro lifer she had for a lawyer. It was always about money and Clinton.
I always thought that one of the best popular culture commentaries on the whole Anita-Hill-at-Senate-confirmation-hearings thing was provided at the time by the TV show Dinosaurs, in their second season episode “What Sexual Harass Meant”. If you’re not familiar with the show, you’re missing out on one of the best social commentary sitcoms of the early 1990s.
In the show, after re-enacting in the sort of exaggerated way that show had the ridiculous questioning of the female accuser by somewhat bored older men on a committee, they interviewed the accused who basically said “Yeah, what she said is all true, but look at her”. At this point the chair of the committee laughed and agreed that it was all in good fun and gaveled the thing closed.
Really, I thought that said all that needed to be said on the matter - it was pretty clear at the time that Anita Hill was right, most of the Senate knew it, and most of those senators who claimed not to believe her were just looking for political cover when they really believed her, but didn’t care.
…
Also, Amanda seems to have taken care of it, but I’ll note that comment 40 on this post gives a way for those of us who use firefox to simply click one button and never have to see seroj’s stuff again.
Daniel, I just installed your script. You rock.
(Any chance you could get that to work for Pam’s House Blend?)
Fortunately, Blue Jean, I was spared from the Jones’ torture-by-television by my nationality (on the minus side, I now have to pretend to be suffering fits of depression in sympathy with my rugby-mad cow-orkers).
Without arguing with you (since you’re better acquainted withthe facts than I am), I point out that neither her subsequent hypocrisy, her subsequent opportunism or her subsequent nudity invalidate her claim. That Clinton settled out of court appears to be pretty strong evidence her story of the incident was substantially correct. Would that Hill could have had sufficient backing to force the same conclusion.
Phoe,
I love you, but since Jones was obviously lying about protecting her “chaste reputation”, then she was probably lying about the underlying accusation too. And if Thomas was facing the same “impeachment or settle” dilemma that Clinton was, he’d probably would have settled too.
That Clinton settled out of court appears to be pretty strong evidence her story of the incident was substantially correct.
No, no, no. NO.
People settle out of court because they want to avoid a bad outcome, because they want to have things over with, because they just don’t want to pay the costs anymore.
Clinton won on summary judgment in the trial court, meaning that there were no triable issues of fact and that everything could be decided as a matter of law. He won. Jones appealed, and it was only after a couple of the judges on the panel seemed sympathetic to Jones’ arguments (and not on the ultimate issues, just whether there were no issues of fact to be settled at trial) that he decided to settle.
Had the lower court been reversed, he would have had two options: go ahead with the trial, or try his luck with the Supreme Court. Either option would have been hideously expensive, even more than what he wound up paying out to Jones (his attorney was Bob Bennett of Skadden Arps, a firm that is not known for its low fees or lean staffing. Bennett’s hourly rate was probably around $400-500 an hour, and the associates and junior partners would have been costing Clinton in the neighborhood, at the time, of $200-$350 per hour. Each. And the paralegals would have cost, as well, probably about $75/hour. Over the 4.5 years this dragged on, Clinton’s attorneys likely racked up at minimum 2500 hours on the case, which is half a million at the low end. Litigation is extremely, extremely expensive).
And she used most of the settlement money to pay her legal fees, as well.
Clinton neither admitted wrongdoing nor offered an apology. Settlement does NOT mean an admission of wrongdoing, it simply means an end to the litigation.
but since Jones was obviously lying about protecting her “chaste reputation”
Didn’t notice that bit (of course, I was paying as little attention as possible). What exactly did she say, and why do you believe it was a lie - the Penthouse thing afterwards?
then she was probably lying about the underlying accusation too.
In your opinion, does the Wikipedia article cover it well? The statement by Jones is cited there.
Shit - now I’m derailing the thread - forget it.
A crude and nasty request for sex.
It’s not harassment unless it’s a quid pro quo or a hostile work environment. Neither of those can be supported by a one-time event.
Was it wrong? Of course it was wrong! But unless you can point to some damage he caused her in response to her refusal, it’s not grounds for a lawsuit.
It *might* have been grounds for an obscenity charge in the criminal courts… a misdemeanor “flashing” charge. But that’s not grounds for a lawsuit.
How on earth can you call a settlement evidence that her story was true? The case had gone along, and been dismissed on its complete lack of merit. The judge ruled, unsurprisingly, that there was *no* case.
It was reactivated *only* because of the media screaming about Clinton’s alleged perjury. The judge had to give Jones another bite at the apple because of that, and that was the only reason the case was reactivated. At that point, $850,000 was probably a bargain over the costs of continuing to fight the case.
The settlement is strong evidence that the case was a pain in the ass valued at much more than $850,000.
Look, Clinton can’t keep his zipper up. We know that. The only question is whether in this instance, the feeling was mutal. Really, only the principals can know since I don’t remember that there was much to corroborate Ms. Jones’ specific allegations. The thing is, the American people had more or less figured that out but then got to vote. With Thomas, since not everyone can vote on a Supreme Court nomination, Congress has to be tougher on the applicants. There was enough mud dug from the well of truth that should have stuck to Thomas. It’s wrong that he got hosed off, and the American people got hosed.
The thing is that if there was a way to hang Paula Jones on Clinton, the Repubs would have done it.
Instead, they settled for a second rate issue, a consensual encounter initiated by the woman.
Now, why on earth would you impeach on Lewinsky if you have a good case with Jones? You don’t. You go with what you can prove, even if it’s less juicy. End of story. If, after years of expensive investigation and every think tank and right wing hack in the country on Clinton like flies on shit, they could not get anything from the Jones case to hang him with, I think we can safely say that it’s the unlikeliest bit of harassment imaginable. Not that there’s not an outside chance Jones was telling the truth. Just that if anyone was lying, it was her. Anyone who extends her the benefit of the doubt and not, say, the accuser in the Duke case, is so full of shit that people avoid him for fear the stink is catching.
Read zuzu’s links again, Phoe. Jones’ lawyer claims that the case was “about Paula’s reputation”. David Brock wrote the article where “a woman named Paula offered to be Clinton’s regular girlfriend”. So…why didn’t Jones sue Brock? Because Brock had no money, and no right wing lawyers were going to work free to sue a (then) right wing journalist. Even though Brock was intent on smearing Clinton (not Jones), Jones chose to sue the victim of the article, rather than the perpetrator. Jones saw an opportunity for money and fame, and she took it.
If you keep saying “Oh, I’m not that sort of girl!” and “I’ll sue to show that I didn’t want to be his girlfriend!” and you then pose nude in a national magazine the minute the case which was all about your “reputation” was settled, then people might get the idea you’re lying about your “reputation” and its importance.
I believed Anita Hill, and I had some contact with Virginia Thomas at the time of the hearings. The Thomases are weird folks indeed. I’d believe just about anything any woman said about Thomas, and Anita Hill wasn’t the only one.
I totallly get what people are saying about Gilligan and women learning to suppress their voices. I have TA’d a few symbolic logic classes and tutor logic students to this day. There are more women than men at my university, and because students are able to substitute logic for a math credit (and many women are math phobic), logic tends to be about two thirds women. I find that a lot of women think it’s all about memorization and compliance. While they are as generally competent as male students, they are simply unwilling to apply basic imagination and intuition to understand that symbolic is much easier than memorizing a bunch of chicken scratch and pushing around symbols on a piece of paper.
I like to use an example from a local plumber’s commercial. The slogan is “On Time; Done right; Or it’s Free!” My clients intuitively understand that if the plumber is late they get free service; and that if the plumber shows up on time, but screws up, they also get free service. However, they cannot understand that this means that they should also understand that (T&R)vF is logically equivalent to ~(T&R)->F . What trauma has befallen them that they cannot apply their most basic logical intuitions they use in understanding TV commercials? I used to think that Gilligan was mostly full of BS and was actually even antifemininist, but now I think she hit a few things right on the money.
I’m glad to hear that “Youth Against Fascism” apparently galvanized so many young political activists, but personally I always thought the song was ironic. The real meaning of the lyrics, as I understood them, was “we’re behind the principle, we just can’t stand the earnest sloganeering”, i.e., “it’s the song I hate” (not the message behind it). I think lyrics like “we’re banging pots and pans / to make you understand / we’re gonna bury you, man”, with their short, simplistic rhymes, were mocking earnest political activists. Thurston’s delivery sounds more like a mock-petulant whine than a righteous effort to stick it to the man. And that’s consistent with the attitude of the übercool kids at my school circa 1992, who didn’t get involved in political demonstrations because it might mess up their reputation for Deep Thinking or their carefully-cultivated bedhead looks or whatever. The one time they did mount a demonstration, it was all arty and (snore) “transgressive”, led by a guy dressed up as the Statue of Liberty and waving a Bible, and nobody understood what point exactly they were trying to make.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Sonic Youth as much as anybody, and other songs of theirs, like “Swimsuit Issue” on the same album, make it clear that they did care (although I think there might be a Kim/Thurston dichotomy at work here). But I don’t think we can take the line about believing Anita Hill at face value as some kind of anti-Clarence Thomas rallying cry.
Wow, that is one hell of a good interview. I’ve rarely seen anyone give that put-together a defense, much less a woman who’s being accused of faking sexual harassment allegations. Then again, if she is a lawyer and if it’s been 15 years since the first round of this stuff, it makes sense that she wouldn’t be floundering. Anyway–I’m impressed. Wow.
When I was in middle school in the early 80s, boys would trap me amidst a group of them and say explicit sexual things to me, try to get me to look at porn pictures, and grope for my buttocks and breasts. I spent every day at school dealing with fear and shame and embarrassment, and I had been taught to be so ladylike in speech that I had trouble telling my parents exactly what was wrong –although I think they didn’t want to know the truth; when your daughter declares boys should be jailed until they are men, when she’s told “boys will be boys” it’s not normal teen angst. Maybe if they noticed I hid under my desk for half an hour after coming home most days, they would have stopped cutting me off and telling me the boys couldn’t help themselves because I was pretty?
When Anita Hill came forward, I was a young adult. For the first time in my life, sometime like a name was being put to my experience. Or experiences weren’t the same, but it was the very first time I saw society saying it was wrong for women to have to put up with sexual bullying. It was the first time, in my experience, that society said that something short of attempted rape was still wrong. It meant new training in the workplace with people told what was out of bounds. It meant women and men all over were being told that there are standards.
Anita Hill was my hero.
I think I must have made the moderation queue. Short version, I not only believed her but was grateful she dragged things into the light and made people aware that certain behaviors are unacceptable, not a normal part of being male.
“Not a normal part of being male.” It’s funny the people that embrace that concept, isn’t it? They always refuse to embrace the penalties that should be a consequence of that normality, though.
@ ginmar
They start out early internalizing the “boys will be boys” message and learning entitlement.
I play a popular online game and it’s not uncommon for the female avatars to be chased around and harassed by the male avatars. The player response when you complain about it? “Oh, guys are just gonna be that way and if you don’t like it you shouldn’t be playing”.
It’s also pretty hilarious how very VERY put-upon they are and how much they whine if you politely request that they use phrases like “8-person” instead of “8-man” when forming groups to play missions. Despite all the conplaining about “shrill women”, I think teenaged or socially-awkward males in a gaming environment are about the most whiny crybabies on the planet.
I was in graduate school in west Philly then. I believed Anita Hill, I dumped my abusive boyfriend, and I was at that 1992 pro-choice march with an I believe Anita Hill pin.
That was the period when I went from liberal to radical.
Read zuzu’s links again, Phoe.
Will do when I get the time. Rushed today.
thanks.
May, I was there also!
I was like, 9, so all I remember is my mom saying something derisive about coke cans.
In terms of heresys, “You can’t force people to live in a Democracy” isn’t blunt enough.
“You can’t force people to be like you”?
too vauge. eh whatever.
Thread Related: Whatever happened to those CD clubs, the ones you found in magazines, that were like “Buy one CD for 15$, get ten for 1$ each” or some such? I allways thought they were scams, back when I was 13 or so. My much cooler friends eventually made use of them, with no complaint. Huh.