Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. I'm Katie Couric and this is next question,
Speaker 1: Mr Chairman, Senator Thurman, Members of the Committee. My name
Speaker 1: is Anita F. Hill and I'm a professor. This fall
Speaker 1: marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings.
Speaker 1: I was introduced to now Judge Thomas by a mutual friend.
Speaker 1: On October eleven, Anita Hill testified before Congress that the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court nominee had sexually harassed her when they worked
Speaker 1: together at two government agencies a decade before. What happened
Speaker 1: next and telling the world about it are the two
Speaker 1: most difficult things experiences of my life. It was a
Speaker 1: truly historic moment. It's hard to even imagine now given
Speaker 1: the past couple of years and the advent of Me Too.
Speaker 1: But before Anita Hill shared her d tailed testimony in
Speaker 1: front of an all white male panel, the term sexual harassment,
Speaker 1: let alone the act of it, had never really been
Speaker 1: talked about publicly and in front of a television audience.
Speaker 1: That was a turning point. It brought sexual harassment into
Speaker 1: the national conversation in a way it had not been before.
Speaker 1: Countless women, I think, identified with the experiences that Anita
Speaker 1: Hill spoke about very movingly, very powerfully at the hearing.
Speaker 1: Debor Turkheimer is a law professor at Northwestern University. She's
Speaker 1: also the author of the new book Credible, Why We
Speaker 1: Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers. Way back when sexual harassment
Speaker 1: wasn't even a term that anyone recognized. It had to
Speaker 1: be coined before there could be this common vernacular, and
Speaker 1: people could then begin to identify their experiences as experiences
Speaker 1: that other people had to other, particularly women in the workplace,
Speaker 1: particularly vulnerable, marginalized women in the workplace, that this was
Speaker 1: something that wasn't idiosyncratic, it was patterned and and there
Speaker 1: were commonalities to it. And so this consciousness raising is
Speaker 1: a really important aspect of of sort of what feminism is.
Speaker 1: And then when you have a high profile event like
Speaker 1: the Anita Hill testimony, and you have the the the
Speaker 1: entire country transfixed and processing and reaching you know, different conclusions,
Speaker 1: but nevertheless focused on this as an issue, I think
Speaker 1: it does really galvanized new understandings and important conversations. After
Speaker 1: a brief discussion of work, he would turn the conversation
Speaker 1: to a discussion of sexual matters. His conversations were very
Speaker 1: vivid on several occasions, Thomas tomy graphically of his own
Speaker 1: sexual prowess. This was a really important step in the
Speaker 1: direction of societal acknowledgement that this is a problem, and
Speaker 1: a sense on the part of sexual harassment victims that
Speaker 1: this doesn't have to be tolerated, that this isn't something
Speaker 1: that is normalized. It's not something that's okay. Now that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that victims will necessarily come forward. There are
Speaker 1: lots of reasons why that's going to be difficult. But
Speaker 1: more so than before her testimony, I think victims of
Speaker 1: workplace harassment understood that this was not okay. How reliable
Speaker 1: is your testimony in October on events that occurred eight
Speaker 1: and years ago? How sure can you expect this committee
Speaker 1: to be on the accuracy of your statement. I guess
Speaker 1: one really does have to understand something about the nature
Speaker 1: of sexual harassment. Um, it is very difficult for people
Speaker 1: to come forward with these She came forward having worked
Speaker 1: at the e o C, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Speaker 1: under Clarence Thomas, having, she said, experienced some fairly serious
Speaker 1: sexual harassment at his hands. He commented on what I
Speaker 1: was wearing in terms of whether it made me more
Speaker 1: or less sexually attractive? Who has put pubic hair on
Speaker 1: my coat? He referred to the size of his own
Speaker 1: penis as being larger than normal, and he also spoke
Speaker 1: on some occasions of the pleasure. So when Anita Hill
Speaker 1: came forward and told her story, she was treated horribly.
Speaker 1: She was treated horribly by the senators who were responsible
Speaker 1: for conducting these hearings. It is appropriate to ask Professor
Speaker 1: Hill anything any member wishes to ask her. Are you
Speaker 1: a scorned woman? Do you have have anything to gain
Speaker 1: by coming here is to plumb the depths of her credibility?
Speaker 1: Are you interested in writing a book? You testify this
Speaker 1: morning that the most embarrassing question involved this is not
Speaker 1: too bad women's large breast. That's the word we use
Speaker 1: all the time. The witness did not say anything to
Speaker 1: the FBI about the described size of his penis, the
Speaker 1: description of the movie Long Dong Silver. You are not
Speaker 1: now drawing a conclusion the judge Thomas sexually harassed you. Yes,
Speaker 1: I am joining that conclusion that I don't understand. Pardon
Speaker 1: me that I don't understand. This is an example of
Speaker 1: the credibility complex kicked into high gear. This was someone
Speaker 1: who was coming forward against a very powerful man who
Speaker 1: was seen by many as having an entitlement to this
Speaker 1: Supreme Court justiceship, to having an entitlement to sit on
Speaker 1: the highest court of the land for the for the
Speaker 1: rest of his of his career. And nothing was going
Speaker 1: to disrupt that. The status quo was was not going
Speaker 1: to be upended. Even when someone with the I would
Speaker 1: say authority on the credibility of an Anita Hill came forward,
Speaker 1: it wasn't going to change the course of events. Clarence
Speaker 1: Thomas was of course confirmed to the Supreme Court since
Speaker 1: as a justice today, and that experience was so difficult
Speaker 1: for many Americans to watch, for many women, in particular
Speaker 1: women who had experienced their own workplace harassment and women
Speaker 1: who had just lived in the world and felt this
Speaker 1: to be a very familiar experience. I think I just
Speaker 1: felt deeply wounded on her behalf. When I recently sat
Speaker 1: down with Anita Hill, she told me that she heard
Speaker 1: from those women men. When I testified, this woman wrote
Speaker 1: me and said, there will be waves of women behind you.
Speaker 1: I immediately started hearing from thousands of people. I mean,
Speaker 1: the letters were coming in in flood, and those women
Speaker 1: changed the course of her life. I thought after the
Speaker 1: hearing that I could just get back to my life,
Speaker 1: and that wasn't possible. It was not going to be
Speaker 1: the same. Coming up my conversation with Anita Hill on
Speaker 1: her thirty year work to engender violence, her new book,
Speaker 1: and the lasting impact of her testimony thirty years later.
Speaker 1: I'm close up this morning the Clarence Thomas nomination. When
Speaker 1: the Ane to Hill Clarence Thomas controversy unfolded in September
Speaker 1: of nine, I was the newly appointed co anchor on
Speaker 1: the Today Show. The Senate is to vote tonight on
Speaker 1: whether Thomas should get a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: but a charge that Thomas sexually harassed one of his
Speaker 1: employees a decade ago has fueled new last minute debate
Speaker 1: over the nomination. The Clarence Thomas nomination had seemed all
Speaker 1: that assured until rumors of his past behavior spurred a
Speaker 1: federal investigation. Behind the scenes of the public hearings, Anita
Speaker 1: Hill was privately interviewed by the FBI, and her statement
Speaker 1: was leaked to the press. On October seven, she came
Speaker 1: forward publicly and said she would testify. I interviewed her
Speaker 1: on October eight. Why do you think we're not hearing
Speaker 1: about this or we didn't hear about this until the
Speaker 1: eleventh hour? What took so long from that date until
Speaker 1: these charges actually surfaced publicly. I don't believe that, um,
Speaker 1: they were necessarily taken seriously. I think this is part
Speaker 1: of what the frustration that I'm experiencing, and then a
Speaker 1: lot of women are experiencing that these kinds of UH
Speaker 1: claims and are in statements are not taking seriously. Anita
Speaker 1: health testimony forced the country to confront sexual harassment, to
Speaker 1: take accusations seriously for the first time. When I sat
Speaker 1: down recently with Anita, we talked about how far we
Speaker 1: have and haven't come all these years later. I remember
Speaker 1: covering your testimony and it was really the first time
Speaker 1: people talked openly and understood what sexual harassment was about.
Speaker 1: And since then, whether you're talking about me too, and
Speaker 1: the reckoning that took place in the last three years,
Speaker 1: it has really gotten to be out in the open.
Speaker 1: And yet it feels we haven't made enough progress. Why
Speaker 1: do you think with so much awareness we haven't made
Speaker 1: more progress. One of the things that we do very
Speaker 1: often is we depersonalize it. We you know, we talk
Speaker 1: about the numbers, you know one and four college students
Speaker 1: will be sexually harassed or assault and account college campuses,
Speaker 1: And what we should be saying is that we send
Speaker 1: their children to school every year in September, and in reality,
Speaker 1: we know that that daughter or that niece, or that
Speaker 1: cousin or sister is very likely to become a victim
Speaker 1: of sexual harassment or assault in that space. We know
Speaker 1: that in the numbers are even worse for those who
Speaker 1: don't go to college. But people want to depersonalize that.
Speaker 1: They don't want to think about the fact that when
Speaker 1: you talk about ten million people per year who will
Speaker 1: experience intimate partner violence, people don't want to think about
Speaker 1: the fact that with a number that large, you're talking
Speaker 1: about people who are in York community. You're talking about
Speaker 1: somebody who maybe waits on you at a restaurant, or
Speaker 1: somebody who's teaching your children in school. So these are
Speaker 1: people who you know could be somebody in your own family.
Speaker 1: So we we depersonalize it, and because of that, we
Speaker 1: pretend not to see it. The other reason I think
Speaker 1: that we haven't done more about it is because we have,
Speaker 1: over the course of our lives, been groomed to believe
Speaker 1: that it's not such a big problem. Um. Well, we
Speaker 1: hear people tell girls, especially you know, that behavior that
Speaker 1: they find that makes them uncomfortable or find even offensive
Speaker 1: isn't really that bad. It's not so bad. Deal with
Speaker 1: it and deal with it, or you know, you know,
Speaker 1: boys do it because they like it, or that's just
Speaker 1: what boys do. And sometimes that language can escalate that
Speaker 1: it's not just deal with it, or it's more you know,
Speaker 1: if you if you don't shut your mouth, you're going
Speaker 1: to get in trouble. So there are ways that we
Speaker 1: prepare not only girls just to live with this problem
Speaker 1: and not complain, we're also preparing abusers to accept their
Speaker 1: own bad behavior and expect that other people will tolerate it.
Speaker 1: And what we heard when we got those nineteen million
Speaker 1: tweets um with me too, with the hashtag too, was
Speaker 1: that it is a problem. It is a significant problem.
Speaker 1: It's a harmful problem, and it's something that women and
Speaker 1: men are living with. Your book is called Believing, Our
Speaker 1: thirty year Journey to End Gender Violence. It's your third book.
Speaker 1: It's a real representation of you and your work It's
Speaker 1: part memoir but also part legal and social analysis and
Speaker 1: a lot of personal accounts of women you've met over
Speaker 1: the years. Why write this book now, Anita, was the
Speaker 1: thirty year anniversary the impetus for you to say, let's
Speaker 1: look back on our progress, let's tell the stories of
Speaker 1: the women I've gotten to know through these years. It
Speaker 1: wasn't just the anniversary, although I was mindful of the anniversary,
Speaker 1: but more importantly, it was the thirty years between and
Speaker 1: my testimony and where we are now. This was an
Speaker 1: opportunity to look at all of the things that have
Speaker 1: happened in those thirty years, and you know, take stock
Speaker 1: of where we are. And I'm concluding, of course, that
Speaker 1: we have a long way to go. Yet I really
Speaker 1: am conceding that we have come far in thirty years.
Speaker 1: So why now, Well, because we've got evidence that really
Speaker 1: gender violence is at a toxic level when you take
Speaker 1: into account this huge range of behaviors that happened under
Speaker 1: the guise of of gender violence. All there are so
Speaker 1: many different facets of it. I mean, it ranges from
Speaker 1: bullying and harassment and elementary schools to bullying in harassment
Speaker 1: and workplaces. It ranges from sexual harassment and assaults and
Speaker 1: rape on our streets. It includes intimate partner violence in
Speaker 1: our homes, and the phrases don't even capture the experience
Speaker 1: as fully. But when you calculate the range, when you
Speaker 1: calculate the human cost and the harm that's being done
Speaker 1: to us as a society, then what you realize is
Speaker 1: that we have this enormous problem that needs to be
Speaker 1: called out as a public crisis. When Me too happened,
Speaker 1: I'm just curious what it was like watching it unfold
Speaker 1: from your perspective. I have been dealing with this not
Speaker 1: simply through my own experience, but through the experience of
Speaker 1: thousands of others. I really, honestly was just grateful that
Speaker 1: people were coming forward and talking about it and that
Speaker 1: finally we could, you know, convince people that this was
Speaker 1: a real problem, that this wasn't just a few bad
Speaker 1: apples or a few people who were too oversensitive, um,
Speaker 1: that this was a problem that's a social problem, is
Speaker 1: a stomach problem, and that it should be dealt with
Speaker 1: it that way, because you know, even up until in
Speaker 1: some cases and even today, you have people say, you know,
Speaker 1: this problem really doesn't exist, it's made up for whatever
Speaker 1: political reasons, economic reasons that it doesn't exist, when in
Speaker 1: fact we know all of the facts point to the
Speaker 1: reality of it. I still today here women and men
Speaker 1: supporting people who behaved a certain way workplace by saying
Speaker 1: women through themselves at this person. A lot of these
Speaker 1: kind of familiar defenses surface, And I'm curious what you
Speaker 1: think when you hear that, you know it's it's another
Speaker 1: form of denial. I think what it comes down to
Speaker 1: is our unwillingness to act, our fear of acting, and
Speaker 1: really our desire to to uh prioritize the lives and
Speaker 1: experiences of men over the lives and experiences of women.
Speaker 1: And I think those will continue. Again, that's still part
Speaker 1: of the cultural problem. But but in fact, you know,
Speaker 1: there are also some systemic problems because in some ways
Speaker 1: the culture has been built into our systems. So we
Speaker 1: we put an extraordinarily high burden on victims, even in
Speaker 1: elementary schools, to solve their own problems, to be the
Speaker 1: ones that tell the administrators exactly what's happening, when it's happening,
Speaker 1: why it was wrong, and to be able in some
Speaker 1: of the sense, to prove that they have been bullied
Speaker 1: or harassed and or to prove that they deserve to
Speaker 1: have some attention brought to it. And the problems aren't
Speaker 1: just in schools. The problems the systemic problems, because it's
Speaker 1: in the criminal justice system throughout. When you take the
Speaker 1: problem of rape and sexual assault, you know the fact
Speaker 1: that we have rape kits that our backlog that after
Speaker 1: an individual goes through the the grueling process of having
Speaker 1: an examination done and participated in this effort to find
Speaker 1: out who her assailant is, that then they get put
Speaker 1: on the show and then warehoused. I mean that shows
Speaker 1: us how broken the system is. When I started out
Speaker 1: this book, I thought, Wow, this is really kind of
Speaker 1: like boiling the ocean because there's so much out there.
Speaker 1: I thought about you many times over the years, and
Speaker 1: one of those times was in in two thousand and
Speaker 1: eighteen during Christine blassie Ford's testimony against Brett Kavanaugh. There
Speaker 1: were many differences, but some similarities. Were you shocked by
Speaker 1: the familiaria of the event and were you expecting a
Speaker 1: different outcome? I wanted a different outcome. I wanted a process.
Speaker 1: I wanted, you know, something that wasn't even possible from
Speaker 1: the beginning. I would have wanted her to have a
Speaker 1: place to complain. She didn't have a place to complain.
Speaker 1: I wanted her to have a thorough investigation. What we
Speaker 1: had was one that was deliberately limited by President Trump then,
Speaker 1: who was a sponsor who had invested interest in Kavanaugh
Speaker 1: being confirmed. You know, I wanted, of course, I wanted
Speaker 1: a different outcome, But I think that the country would
Speaker 1: have been better off even if the outcome had remained
Speaker 1: the same, if there had been a different way for
Speaker 1: her to come forward and to be heard. And that's
Speaker 1: really what I wanted. Um, that's not what we got. However,
Speaker 1: that wasn't the end of it. And we do know
Speaker 1: that the public reacted very strongly in a negative way.
Speaker 1: Or the outcome and the confirmation specifically of just now
Speaker 1: Justice Kavanaugh. We know that again a sign of progress
Speaker 1: because there were so many similarities between but the public
Speaker 1: response was quite different. I did hear from people who
Speaker 1: would say, you know, are we going to go back
Speaker 1: to high school and blame people for you know, a
Speaker 1: boorish behavior or drinking too much? Is this an sort
Speaker 1: of an unrealistic purity test? And when people say that,
Speaker 1: you say, what this is? There is no purity test
Speaker 1: so much as there is full disclosure, honesty and transparency.
Speaker 1: And if you can't up that with the cord, where
Speaker 1: can you get it? Um. The people who sit on
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court are making decisions about all sorts of cases,
Speaker 1: some of which will include very likely sexual harassment or
Speaker 1: sexual assault, and we need to understand the full character
Speaker 1: and integrity of those people who are making us to
Speaker 1: us us And if that means, you know, going back
Speaker 1: to the high school, we go back to the high school.
Speaker 1: You know, we do that anyway for candidates, you know,
Speaker 1: but you know they've had elementary teachers testify or write
Speaker 1: statements in support of Canada that's nominees to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's it's dishonest then to hide the
Speaker 1: things that are not so positive, in fact are very negative.
Speaker 1: So we need to have all of that and then
Speaker 1: the public gets city side. Why did you call the
Speaker 1: book believing? Because it takes a lot of believing too
Speaker 1: actually boil those should I mean to to look at
Speaker 1: the whole of this problem and realize that if you
Speaker 1: don't look at the whole, if you don't look at
Speaker 1: this this enormous um body of behavior that is happening.
Speaker 1: That's injuring all of us. You're not going to be
Speaker 1: able to solve the different pieces and to believe that
Speaker 1: that it is solvable, because you know, another one of
Speaker 1: the excuses that people raise is that, gosh, this is
Speaker 1: just the way it is. This is the way it's
Speaker 1: always bad. It's much too big for us to get
Speaker 1: our arms around, and so let's just you know, you know,
Speaker 1: let's just deal with it. Let's push it off on
Speaker 1: the victims to deal with So believing for me included
Speaker 1: not only that we need to enlist and believe in
Speaker 1: survivors and victims, we also need to believe that we
Speaker 1: are worthy of solutions and that change is possible. I
Speaker 1: remember the buttons that people were I believe, Anita Hill,
Speaker 1: after your testimony, and one question I wanted to ask
Speaker 1: you about was the notion of believing all women. You know,
Speaker 1: as a journalist, I've not necessarily struggled with it, because
Speaker 1: I know the statistics, Anita, I know the fact how
Speaker 1: much courage it does take to move forward. But in
Speaker 1: the aftermath that the Me Too movement, as some people
Speaker 1: felt the pendulum had swung too much, what do you
Speaker 1: think about the notion of believing all women. I've talked
Speaker 1: to Jodie Canter of The New York Times a little
Speaker 1: bit about this, and it it um. It does fly
Speaker 1: in the face of what journalists are really supposed to do,
Speaker 1: search for truth and facts. So I would love you
Speaker 1: to weigh in and and tell me how you feel
Speaker 1: about that. Well, we now have a culture that assumes
Speaker 1: that women are lying despite all the facts. There's this
Speaker 1: persumption that women lie about their experiences. Do you think
Speaker 1: that still exists even today? Oh? I do think it exists.
Speaker 1: I mean either they believe that women are lying, or
Speaker 1: that that that what happens doesn't matter, or that it
Speaker 1: was their fault or that it was their fault. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so either way, we have decided that men are
Speaker 1: always telling the truth to some extent, or men are
Speaker 1: all the matter. And so you know, we've got we've
Speaker 1: we've really, in the face of all the damage that's
Speaker 1: being done, we have to sort of change our way
Speaker 1: of thinking. And so that's one part. I mean, the
Speaker 1: term believe all women is for me, just our invitation.
Speaker 1: Two put in place systems in processes that allow us
Speaker 1: to be heard and believed, and we're not there yet
Speaker 1: and so that is what it means to me believe
Speaker 1: in us enough to care enough to put systems in
Speaker 1: that allows us to get to the truth more with
Speaker 1: the need of right after this, much of this book
Speaker 1: has a sort of before and after feel of your
Speaker 1: life before nine when you gave that testimony against up
Speaker 1: then Supreme Court nominee Clearance Thomas, and when you were
Speaker 1: a tenured law professor at the University of Oklahoma College
Speaker 1: of Law, the first African American ever be tenured. And
Speaker 1: then after that testimony ultimately up ended your life, you
Speaker 1: moved to Massachusetts, you took a full position at Brandis
Speaker 1: and and embarked on this journey to end gender violence.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about that moment in between and what
Speaker 1: led you to that life change chain decision? I after
Speaker 1: the hearing that first of all, I thought I could
Speaker 1: just get back to my life, and that wasn't possible.
Speaker 1: It was not going to be the same. And people
Speaker 1: think that after I testified, I went back and things
Speaker 1: were all normal, But you know from having talked to
Speaker 1: me about what happened afterwards, that there were threats and
Speaker 1: there was hostility, and there were efforts to get me
Speaker 1: fired from my job. But after you know, I got
Speaker 1: over the realization that it was not going to get
Speaker 1: back to normal, I actually started looking at what I
Speaker 1: could do to understand and help other people understand how
Speaker 1: we might solve the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace.
Speaker 1: What I realized was that the law alone, and I
Speaker 1: was trained, you know and teaching law, the law alone
Speaker 1: was not going to be the answer. That the problem
Speaker 1: was bigger than the laws that we now have in place.
Speaker 1: So I ended up moving from Oklahoma, leaving a tenure
Speaker 1: job for a contract position, because it decided I needed
Speaker 1: to learn more about all of the ways that systems
Speaker 1: and policies work together to keep this problem in place.
Speaker 1: And so that's what I did. I just I left
Speaker 1: and I started teaching at a policy school, and I
Speaker 1: was surrounded by people with various disciplines um and I
Speaker 1: was surrounded by people who were interested in solving social
Speaker 1: problem generally. And that was an environment that allowed me
Speaker 1: to really grow and to develop many of the ideas
Speaker 1: that that came into ultimately into the book. Had I
Speaker 1: not made that change, I think I might have still
Speaker 1: been somewhat stuck in terms of my thinking. But you
Speaker 1: know what, Katie, how fortunate I am that I could
Speaker 1: do that. I had training as a lawyer. But I
Speaker 1: was also fortunate because I had a job that was transferable,
Speaker 1: and I had skills that were transferable to somewhat place else.
Speaker 1: And I didn't have to worry about a family that
Speaker 1: would get suffered because of changes that I made, not
Speaker 1: my immediate family, and you know, I did have to
Speaker 1: leave my parents and siblings in Oklahoma, but I left
Speaker 1: with their support. You must have heard from so many
Speaker 1: people through the years, Anita, who didn't have transferable skills,
Speaker 1: who didn't really have marketable skills, who were stuck and
Speaker 1: trapped with no place to go, no options. And I
Speaker 1: imagine those for the stories that affected you the most.
Speaker 1: They absolutely are and I say none were, They absolutely
Speaker 1: are the stories. You know, we like to say if
Speaker 1: more women would just come forward and file complaints, then
Speaker 1: the problem would be fixed. Now we're ignoring the fact
Speaker 1: that the systems as they go into aren't there to
Speaker 1: fix their problems necessarily. But we are also ignoring the
Speaker 1: fact that there are costs to people who come forward,
Speaker 1: and there risks that some people just cannot take. When
Speaker 1: when when someone says, you know, well, if I take this,
Speaker 1: I may lose my job. I may not ever be
Speaker 1: able to get another one. I don't know where I
Speaker 1: will get another one. You know, my my uh my
Speaker 1: boss will be called if if I try to move
Speaker 1: to another place, and what am I going to tell
Speaker 1: the new employer and all of those things have to
Speaker 1: be taken into account. You know, we we make it very,
Speaker 1: very difficult for people to file complaints, which is one
Speaker 1: reason we have no idea the real depth of this problem,
Speaker 1: because there are so many people who will never be
Speaker 1: able to speak up. That was definitely the case thirty
Speaker 1: years ago. But you don't think that's changed at all.
Speaker 1: You don't think that that there has been positive movement
Speaker 1: in terms of supporting people who I mean, granted, I
Speaker 1: totally understand what you're saying. Some people don't have the options,
Speaker 1: but is there some good news? Has the needle moved
Speaker 1: in any way? The needle has moved, and while there
Speaker 1: are still people who who cannot make the choices that
Speaker 1: I may, there are organizations that are supporting people to
Speaker 1: make the choices that they can make. Two be safe
Speaker 1: in spaces, but the resources aren't enough to keep up
Speaker 1: with the level of the problem, and quite Frankly, the
Speaker 1: forces that really are not interested in solving your problem
Speaker 1: or my problem are very very strong. Basically, our systems
Speaker 1: have failed us. The systems that were meant to solve
Speaker 1: the problems are not solving it. You know, I talk
Speaker 1: about a woman named Sharon Dunne UM and Sharon Dunne
Speaker 1: is a Ford um auto worker who filed a suit
Speaker 1: and nine in the ninet nineties. I believe it was nine.
Speaker 1: UM sharing Dunn is still working in the forward plan
Speaker 1: and she is now participating in a suit filed twenty
Speaker 1: years later. So for years that problem has been going on.
Speaker 1: So we've got systems that just are not working. Even
Speaker 1: even in that first lawsuit, there was a huge settlement
Speaker 1: by four to improve the conditions that people were working under.
Speaker 1: Fast forward twenty years later, there's another lawsuit. Things have
Speaker 1: not changed, But have has anything changed? Absolutely something has changed.
Speaker 1: Hasn't changed for enough people, but some things have changed.
Speaker 1: We now want here about these lawsuits. We now know
Speaker 1: about them, We know about the are and dunes. We
Speaker 1: now have organizations that are in fact really engaged. You know.
Speaker 1: I'm on the board of the National Women's Law Center
Speaker 1: UM and we are working hard every day, not only
Speaker 1: to make sure that women are represented, poor women are
Speaker 1: represented UM and women of color, because we know that
Speaker 1: the problems are exacerbated by race and and an income level.
Speaker 1: We are working with organizations, whether it's people who are
Speaker 1: organized in restaurant workers or people who are organizing workers
Speaker 1: in who are doing field work and agricultural work. So
Speaker 1: we're those things that didn't exist UM in nineteen are
Speaker 1: out part of the solution. Part of the reason that
Speaker 1: you're now hearing about sexual harassment insult in schools is
Speaker 1: because of the student movement in universities and those students
Speaker 1: to move where we're part of a movement now are
Speaker 1: in the workplace, and they're part of the movement within
Speaker 1: the workplaces. You know, we do have people walking out
Speaker 1: of workplaces because of bad decisions that were made by
Speaker 1: leadership UM. So, yes, there is energy out there, and
Speaker 1: there is information out there, there are resources out there,
Speaker 1: and I'm hopeful that this is the moment where those
Speaker 1: things will come together and we we can have changed
Speaker 1: we can push this issue forward and make the world
Speaker 1: safer for everyone. I would imagine uh that that many
Speaker 1: people are mind their peace and cues. As my mom
Speaker 1: would say, in ways they never did because of the
Speaker 1: consequences that faced many high profile individuals. Um, do you
Speaker 1: think that that the movement has changed corporate America or
Speaker 1: you know, startups? I mean, I think you can't put
Speaker 1: everything in the same category. But don't you think men
Speaker 1: are afraid now to to act the way they have
Speaker 1: acted or not all but some of them have acted
Speaker 1: for for decades. I think that after every every event
Speaker 1: where a rare awareness is raised, including nine changes happened.
Speaker 1: I have heard from women who have told me my
Speaker 1: my workplace changed in But clearly it's not enough, because
Speaker 1: if it were enough, we would not have had me too,
Speaker 1: and we still have. You know, whatever the reckoning is
Speaker 1: is not complete, you know. I we did a survey
Speaker 1: at the Hollywood Commission of Industry Workers, and one of
Speaker 1: the things that was so startling was that about, oh,
Speaker 1: let's say, of the people we survey said that a
Speaker 1: powerful man will not be held accountable for their bad behavior,
Speaker 1: even if it is document. We can't fire our way
Speaker 1: out of this problem. That's just sort of treating the behavior.
Speaker 1: And we've got to deal with this as a structural problem.
Speaker 1: And I think it goes well beyond individual workplaces. You know,
Speaker 1: it goes really to me all the way to our government,
Speaker 1: and we actually need to have a president who understands
Speaker 1: that the problem is bigger. So, you know, there's still
Speaker 1: a lot of work to be done, but we are
Speaker 1: so much closer to the answers than we were before.
Speaker 1: And the answers are, yes, we have to deal with
Speaker 1: the behavior, but we also have to deal with the
Speaker 1: structures that are enabling to behave You have a lot
Speaker 1: of experience with President Biden, obviously as chairman of the
Speaker 1: Senate Judiciary Committee back in nine. Uh, you had a
Speaker 1: lot of white men staring down at you asking if
Speaker 1: you were a scold woman, uh, citing the Exorcist. You know,
Speaker 1: I know that. Then Senator Biden made you restate some
Speaker 1: of the most salacious details, even though it was in
Speaker 1: your written testament. Any he called you to apologize. What
Speaker 1: was that like, Anita, that that phone call? Can you
Speaker 1: share it with us? Well, I talk about it in
Speaker 1: a little more detail in the book. Uh, but it
Speaker 1: was it was an odd conversation because I wasn't looking
Speaker 1: for an apology. I won't say, you know, I was
Speaker 1: completely over it by the time it happened. But I
Speaker 1: had really put it in perspective in in Chuck and
Speaker 1: I even joked about it. You know, when we were
Speaker 1: having dinner in the doorbell rang uh instead of the
Speaker 1: fed X man. We used to think, oh, well, maybe
Speaker 1: that's Joe Biden coming to apologize. But you know, and
Speaker 1: all seriousness. Um, I really wasn't looking for an apology.
Speaker 1: What I wanted was for somebody to take responsibility. I will.
Speaker 1: And over twenty years ago, I had a question from
Speaker 1: a member of an audience that I was speaking to
Speaker 1: about what president or what Candada will be the best
Speaker 1: Candida to deal with problems of sexual harassment and that
Speaker 1: includes all kinds of misconduct and and abuse. And I
Speaker 1: thought about that question every time we have an election
Speaker 1: because it is an important question, and it is the
Speaker 1: right question to be asked, be asking because we need
Speaker 1: to know what our leaders are going to do about
Speaker 1: this problem. And Joe Biden, for me, was in a
Speaker 1: particularly important place because of because of his support of
Speaker 1: the Violence Against Women Act, because of his support of
Speaker 1: ending harassment and assault on college campuses is effort there
Speaker 1: and during his time in the Ovomit administration, he had
Speaker 1: an opportunity has an opportunity to be the president who
Speaker 1: says I will do everything in my power to make
Speaker 1: sure that America doesn't continue to suffer this problem. Do
Speaker 1: you think he will? Are you disappointed with what he's
Speaker 1: done so far? Well? I think he will if we
Speaker 1: continue to push it. Remember the apology came after he
Speaker 1: was pushed barely often by different people, including journalists. Oh,
Speaker 1: I wasn't one of the people. But I think, you know,
Speaker 1: he has a lot of work to do. But I
Speaker 1: think this should be a priority. And I think that
Speaker 1: unless we we tell him it's a priority, and that
Speaker 1: we continue to urge it and we show him the
Speaker 1: evidence of why it should be a priority, ah, he
Speaker 1: could very well be just like all of the other
Speaker 1: presidents before and and pass it on to the next generation.
Speaker 1: I think when people hear about systemic change and changing,
Speaker 1: you know, societal structures, it is like boiling the ocean.
Speaker 1: Can you condense or take a you know, a cord
Speaker 1: of that water? And if you had to have the
Speaker 1: solutions or the steps that are necessary to really change
Speaker 1: said system, what would they be. Well, one thing that
Speaker 1: I would say is that we need to go back
Speaker 1: and shore up the Violence Against Women Act and in
Speaker 1: the year two thousand, it was got it and the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court decision basically told Congress that it had no
Speaker 1: authority to provide protections and federal protections against violence that
Speaker 1: was based on this faulty idea that you know, gender
Speaker 1: violence didn't impact us nationally, it didn't impact commers, despite
Speaker 1: the evidence that was there. Now we have even more evidence,
Speaker 1: so we now have more reason to go and fortify
Speaker 1: the violence against women that um, not just reconfirm it
Speaker 1: in its existing form, but to make sure we have
Speaker 1: added protections in there for individuals who want to come
Speaker 1: forward and want a safe place or fair in just place,
Speaker 1: actually not a safe safe place, not just a safe place,
Speaker 1: but a fair and just place to be heard. UM.
Speaker 1: We need to have policies that take into account some
Speaker 1: of the harm that's being done to people who experienced
Speaker 1: in their violence and I mean very being very intentional
Speaker 1: and deliberate about it. So we know ten million people
Speaker 1: suffering from UH intimate partner violence. Estimates are that of
Speaker 1: them will become homeless. Because of that, we need housing
Speaker 1: policies that take care of those individuals. Right now, we
Speaker 1: have shelters that are over loaded. It and especially since
Speaker 1: COVID when the numbers of intimate partner violence and domestic
Speaker 1: violence surged, but reporting declined as well. And reporting declined
Speaker 1: because there was no safe way to report and no
Speaker 1: place to go, and no place to go. Then you
Speaker 1: know there are health issues, there are housing issues. We
Speaker 1: know that, for example, people lose income and economic opportunity
Speaker 1: because of violence. Either it can be violence and of
Speaker 1: a partner, violence or sexual harassment in their workplace that
Speaker 1: they lose time, or sexual assault that people lose time
Speaker 1: and opportunities, work opportunities. We don't have any specific policies
Speaker 1: to address that problem of of ongoing economic security for
Speaker 1: people who have been victims of gender violence. I guess
Speaker 1: the simplest answer I would give in terms of what
Speaker 1: I would like and for solutions is to enlist survivors
Speaker 1: and victims and formulating the solutions to this problem bring
Speaker 1: us into the decision. They can put us at the
Speaker 1: table when the laws are being debated, our policies are
Speaker 1: being debated. Listen to what we have to say now,
Speaker 1: and then the other thing that I will say, and
Speaker 1: that talk about this in the book. And we've got
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that there are all kinds of factors that
Speaker 1: are compounding this problem, racism being one, homophobia being another,
Speaker 1: and we've gotten whatever solutions that we come up with.
Speaker 1: We have to understand that if we don't get rid
Speaker 1: of both of those, if we aren't attended to both
Speaker 1: of those issues, that we will only be serving a
Speaker 1: small portion of the population and we will not be
Speaker 1: serving the people who are the most vulnerable. Ultimately, Anita,
Speaker 1: what what do you think your legacy will be? What
Speaker 1: do you hope it will be? Well? I hope I
Speaker 1: have time to add on to it. That's I'm not
Speaker 1: ready to. I mean, it seems so final. I'm not
Speaker 1: ready for it to be final yet. I could feel
Speaker 1: like there's got to be something more that I could
Speaker 1: think of and then will happen. So um, I do
Speaker 1: hope that even right now, that people see me as
Speaker 1: somewhat who is coming from a position of having been
Speaker 1: a victim of bias and harassment, but who is invested
Speaker 1: in A huge thank you to Anita Hill, whose new
Speaker 1: book is called Believing, Our thirty year Journey to End
Speaker 1: Gender Violence. Thank you also to Deborah Turkheimer. Her new
Speaker 1: book is called Credible, Why We Doubt accusers and protect
Speaker 1: abusers both are out now, and if you haven't already,
Speaker 1: there's still time to preorder my book Going There before
Speaker 1: it's October release. And if you'd like to join me
Speaker 1: on tour, you can go to ticketmaster dot com slash
Speaker 1: Going There to find out we're all be traveling and
Speaker 1: to buy tickets. So I hope to see you all
Speaker 1: on the road. Next Question with Kati Kurik is a
Speaker 1: production of My Heart Media and Katie Kurik Media. The
Speaker 1: executive producers Army, Katie Curic and Courtney Litz. The supervising
Speaker 1: producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements, Adrianna Fasio,
Speaker 1: and Emily Pinto. The show is edited and mixed by
Speaker 1: Derrick Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to
Speaker 1: sign up for my morning newsletter, wake Up Call, go
Speaker 1: to Katie correct dot com. You can also find me
Speaker 1: at Katie Currek on Instagram and all my social media channels.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.