Thank you, Anita Hill, for having the courage to speak out about the sexual harassment you had experienced from Clarence Thomas, when he was nominated as a Supreme Court Justice in 1991. Many of us watched aghast at how quickly you became the one on trial by a panel of white male senators who had no idea how common sexual harassment is and how difficult it is for victims to come forward.
Watching media coverage of those hearings and talking with friends, I became aware of how many women have experienced sexual misconduct, and I counted my blessings that I had not. Then out of the recesses of my memory, where it had been long buried, emerged an incident that happened when I was in the 6th grade. Walking home from girl scouts, I met a boy not that much older that I was, who asked me where I went to school, then grabbed my crotch and began to fondle me. I broke away and ran home in tears. As a substitute teacher in our small town, my mom was able to identify the boy, but before we could take action, he was arrested for stealing a truck. As I joked to the few people I had told about this, grand theft auto trumped molesting a girl scout.
Whenever the topic of sexual misconduct comes up within a group of women, more than half and sometimes all of us have such a story, many of them far worse than mine. I’m blessed that I wasn’t raped, physically injured, or subjected to repeated assault. And I’m blessed that the perpetrator wasn’t an acquaintance or family member I had to keep seeing, and that he went away where he could not hurt others. But at a time when I was just becoming aware of my own sexuality, someone violated me. My parents did what they could to ensure I was safe, but the psychic wounds of that experience remained hidden deep within my body, until your courage to speak about your own story drew mine out of hiding.
Recently the astounding accounts of inappropriate behavior by powerful men in media and politics, as well as the flood of revelations elicited by the #MeToo social media campaign, once again brought back that long buried memory. I also recalled the married friend whose hand found my leg under the dinner table and another who grabbed my ass as he hugged me a little too close. We can hope that the current wave of outrage moves us further on the journey you started towards a time when such behavior is no longer tolerated.
It is unlikely that things will end any time soon, because masculine domination remains firmly in place in virtually every society in the world, including ours. Just one year ago, instead of electing a well qualified woman as president, we chose a man who is on record bragging about how he gets away with kissing and fondling women, and who is himself the subject of sexual harassment and sexual assault claims. Men with power continue to use that to take what they want from those who are more vulnerable.
Things are slow to change, but I hope you experienced some satisfaction in hearing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell say, “I believe the women,” meaning the women who accused Roy Moore of sexual misconduct (although politics are also at play in his comment). Thank you for starting us on the path. Because of your courage and that of the women who have come forth more recently, the generations that follow us will more likely be believed, or better yet, no longer be viewed and treated as sexual objects in the first place.