One Woman's Word

On Friday morning October 11, there was a sense that the nation was about to witness a rare and overdue milestone in history. Like many others across the country, members of the Sojourners staff gathered around a television, or tuned in to a radio, to follow the Senate Judiciary Committee's proceedings regarding the sexual harassment allegations brought by University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. What was to come, we hoped, would bring both the seriousness and pervasiveness of sexual harassment firmly into the center of the public eye.

What followed has been described as a "spectacle," a "circus," "political grenade throwing," a "national disgrace." Indeed, who could have imagined that three days of outrageous senatorial bickering, scandalous attacks and counterattacks, and recitals of explicit and lurid sexual matters would be aired on national television.

There were several perversions along the way that led the nation into this abysmal mess. The first was the declaration in July by George Bush that Clarence Thomas was the most qualified person for the job -- and that race had nothing to do with his nomination to the highest court in the land. Clearly, Bush's choice was calculated to please conservatives and squeeze liberals into the difficult position of opposing a black man who had risen from Southern poverty.

The Senate Judiciary Committee added to the scandal in its handling of Anita Hill's allegations. Not one of the senators considered the charges important enough to postpone the committee vote -- some admitted not even reading her affidavit. Their actions prompted an unprecedented march by seven women of the House of Representatives to the Senate to demand that the allegations be taken seriously.

They, of course, knew of the charges only because of a leak to the press by one of the senators or his aides. The leak forced the situation into the public arena, shattering Anita Hill's anonymity and thrusting her before the nation to recount, in graphic detail, in the most public venue possible, the nature of the behavior she alleged experienced from Clarence Thomas.

What got exposed in the days of the hearing was as ugly as the allegations themselves. We witnessed "The Arlen, Orrin, and Alan Show," as Republican senators Specter, Hatch, and Simpson tried to paint Anita Hill as a fantasizer, or conspirator, or perjurer. The Republican questioners -- credited by one political analyst with a "Doberman Pinscher mentality" -- dredged up enough red herrings to sink a trawler.

Who would have thought that the nation would be treated to a hearing described in its opening moments by a CBS correspondent as "sheer bedlam"; to the likes of Orrin Hatch expressing outrage over racial stereotyping (and his bizarre labeling of Hill as an "allegator"); to an egomaniacal witness for Thomas who tried to claim that he was the real victim in all this; to The Exorcist, Shakespeare, the Bible, and Long Dong Silver (who, we can only imagine, will one day show up on Geraldo to tell his story under the heading "Actors with exaggerated anatomy whose names got dragged through the mud at government hearings").

For the most part, the Democrats exhibited the kind of leadership we have come to expect of them. Paralyzed by their own haunting indiscretions (some having been caught in scandals sexual, financial, or otherwise) -- and cowed by Clarence Thomas' shrewd playing of the race card with his declaration that this process was a "high-tech lynching" -- they rolled over when it came time to ask the tough questions of the nominee.

THE FALLOUT has yet to settle from the explosion that was ignited by the volatile mix of race, sex, and politics. Polls show that Americans prefer 2 to 1 that such hearings be held in private in the future. We were eyewitnesses to government run amok and didn't like the view. And never was the vision sharper of a virtually monolithic government in terms of gender and race.

We faced the sorry reminder that there are still those who believe, as Orrin Hatch stated in the extreme, that men who perpetrate sexual harassment are "psychopathic sex fiends" in "insane asylums." Recent polls indicate that 40 percent of American women have experienced sexual harassment at work. But ignorance still runs deep about the power dynamics in the workplace and the choices women make for survival.

The Senate vote to confirm Clarence Thomas was, at the least, disturbing. But, ultimately, it reflects less about views of sexual harassment and more about politics -- about who is beholden to whom when that other vote rolls around about this time next year.

The climax of the hearings really came the evening before the vote, when a poised Anita Hill again addressed the nation. She had survived a campaign that, according to Republican officials quoted in The Washington Post, was based on the White House's determination to "frame the issue as the 'word of one suspect woman' against the collective judgment of the president, the leadership of the Senate, the nominee, and the various groups that have investigated his background." Perhaps no other woman in history has had so much stacked against her.

Indeed, if ever there was any doubt in any woman's mind that coming forward about sexual harassment would put her on trial, there remains no doubt now. That, too, was confirmed by the Senate.

But the woman who endured it, for all the world to see, survived with her dignity. And she left a message for her sisters: "It is worth the risk ... I am hopeful that others will not become discouraged but instead will find the strength to come forward."

In the days since the hearings, the airwaves and news pages have been filled with the testimonies of women and with their insistence that this workplace plague be dealt with. They have spoken loudly and in one voice with their own message: We hear you, Anita.

Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.