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“Anita Hill stood up in 1991 and we can all stand up in 2011.”

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Charles Ogletree, a professor at Harvard Law School and the lead counsel for Anita Hill in 1991 spoke those words yesterday at the moving conference Sex, Power and Speaking Truth: Anita Hill 20 Years Later at Hunter College in New York City.

I agree. We all can stand up today as she did then. But, as I discuss in the latter part of the post, the knowing how to stand up in a way that will be effective and have a lasting-impact is often challenging.

The Conference

Throughout the conference, renowned lawyers, academics, and activists offered history lessons focused on what happened 20 years ago, commentary about the impact it had on current events and organizing efforts, and ideas for addressing sexual harassment in the future (though I thought the latter was a bit light on realistic ideas.)

We watched a compelling clip from Sex & Justice showing what happened 20 years ago and participated in lunchtime discussions on sexual harassment sub-topics.

If you missed it, you can watch most the conference online at C-Span.org.

To give you a taste of the day, here are some of my notes from two of the three panels and from Hill’s keynote address:

1. Charles Ogletree, Harvard Law School spoke first. He represented Anita Hill in 1991.

“What she stood for in 1991 still resonates with us…she’s in a class with Susan B. Anthony, Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt, Fanny Lou Hamer…”

Despite all of the backlash he and Hill faced, his then 12-year-old daughter told him on the phone, “I believe Anita.”

2. Lani Guinier, Harvard Law School

She talked about how Anita Hill made people “deal with the ambivalence and ignorance of the question: ‘Are you black or are you a woman?'”

“Many of us realized that not all women are white, not all blacks are men, and some of us, like Anita Hill, are very brave.”

3. Judith Resnik, Yale Law School

She examined the context of the hearing…how the male Senators on the hearing committee didn’t want to let Hill speak and then cut her defense short. While Thomas should have been on trial, they made it so Hill was.

It’s with the work of Hill and others who stood up for her and spoke out against sexual harassment that “things that are seen as ‘the way things are’ become intolerable”

4. Catharine A. MacKinnon, University of Michigan Law School

She’d been speaking out against sexual harassment since the 1970s and wrote the first book on it in 1979. During the hearing, she gave commentary on NBC.

The hearing was a “massive consciousness raising session” on an issue she’d been trying to raise awareness about for years..the hearing “made sexual harassment real to people” in a way her 1979 book did not, the EEOC guidelines did not, etc…only Anita Hill did.

“Women identified with Anita Hill…they believed her with ferocity and more said so as time and heat passed. They realized what happened to them was often as bad as what happened to her and if she could do it, they could do it too.”

“Sometimes it’s important to stand up and do the right thing, even if you lose,” she said about the DSK-Diallo sexual assault case.

5. Jamia Wilson, Women’s Media Center

“I am not Anita Hill but I could have been and that scares the crap out of me.”

Thelma & Louise + Anita Hill introduced her to victim-blaming and rape shaming. She witnessed the hearings become “a modern day witch hunt rather than the high tech lynching, as Thomas said.”

She feared she could be marked a traitor [against her race] for one day speaking out. The hearing was “intersectionality 101” for her.

6. The keynote address was a conversation between Patricia J. Williams and Hill. Here are a few notes from it:

Anita Hill spoke about the death threats, bomb threats, sh*t people mailed her and how she had to go to the grocery store knowing 7 in 10 people thought she had perjured herself…and how her family and friends helped her through it.

She talked about wanting to get her life back and resented that things didn’t go back to normal after the hearing ended. She said once she let go of that (about 6 months later) and realized she had a different life and she had to decide what shape that life would take, then she was able to move forward and also recognize that while it was an important event that shaped her life, it was just an event.

In her new book Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home she writes about home and also the housing crisis in the USA.

Some of the last things she said related to her work on sexual harassment as she “helps people find their voice, talk about the issues that keep people from living full lives of equality…we should imagine a future where sexual harassment no longer exists”

7. Kimberlé Crenshaw, The African American Policy Network (You can read her speech in the current issue of The Nation).

She spoke a lot to the issue of intersectionality of race and gender.  She said the message still is “just get over it” re: sexual harassment, but “until we say it’s over, it’s not over.”

8. Virginia Valian, Hunter College

She shared stats on sexual harassment in the workplace…they’re the same today as they were 20 years ago.

She said there are several calls to action, including: 1) be smarter about how we influence people in power and how we get them into power. educate judiciary, lawyers, lawmakers, and be more systematic in our efforts 2) Form rapid response teams so we can influence the media and get the correct facts out. Giving good info to the people in power immediately.

9. Gloria Steinem

She talked about the DSK case and how the work of Hill and others allowed Nafissatou Diallo to come forward to report him. Both lost in the courts but they won in public opinion…Most importantly, this is the legacy of Anita Hill: “Thomas is on the Supreme Court but DSK will never be president of France!”

“We have the strength to go forward”

10. Devon Carbado, UCLA School of Law

“What have we learned from the Thomas-Hill hearings? That our anti-racism needs to be tied to a robust feminism and our feminist interventions must be infused with anti-racism.”

11. Julie Zeilinger, FBomb

“Gender conditioning and gender stereotyping allow sexual harassment to continue.”

“Our work isn’t yet done, plenty of us are willing to continue the fight and take Anita Hill’s legacy and run with it.”

It was a day I will never forget. Especially after I had the huge honor of meeting both Steinem and Hill at an evening reception. I got to meet Hill with Joanne Smith, founder and ED of Girls for Gender Equity and one of her organizers Jodyann. Jodyann was determined to get to meet Hill and was overcome with emotion when she did. It was moving.

I’m still feeling the adrenaline and awe f meeting two feminist icons in one evening on top of meeting and reconnecting with amazing current activist/future feminist icons.

L to R: Holly Kearl, Jodyann of Girls for Gender Equity (GGE), Anita Hill, Joanne Smith the ED of GGE

What to Take Away

The conference is over. What now?

Let’s look back to Ogletree’s quote. “Anita Hill stood up in 1991 and we can all stand up in 2011.”

If you’re reading this blog, you probably want to (and do) stand up against sexual harassment—especially the kind that happens in public places—and ideally, you’d like to do so to the same extent that Anita Hill stood up against workplace sexual harassment.

But, if you’re like me, you may find that figuring out what actions will work, what efforts will be effective, and what kind of collective organizing will create long-term change is challenging. It’s especially challenging since “street harassment” is not a universal term and it’s not seen as a legitimate problem by most people. We’re still at the consciousness-raising and education stage.

To help with that stage, sites like HarassMap, Hollaback and mine collect individuals’ stories of resistance to street harassment, people write articles, tweet, and post stories on Tumblr, and numerous groups and people organize community anti-street harassment efforts. But I just don’t think they are enough to really turn street harassment into an immediately-recognized issue that is treated as seriously as workplace sexual harassment, or at least not any time soon.  There must be more we can collectively do about street harassment that is inclusive, appropriate, and effective; or one major action we can rally behind to raise awareness as people rallied behind Anita Hill. But what  is it?

Something I’m taking away from the conference is a better understanding of the workplace anti-sexual harassment movement and I hope that as I reflect on all that I’ve learned, I may come across ideas for effective, inclusive ways we can stand up against street harassment.

A related conference take away for me is a desire to learn even more about the general anti-sexual harassment movement and see what messaging, campaigns, and laws work. I know a lot of people still treat sexual harassment as a joke and it’s still a big problem at work and schools, but at least you don’t get blank stares from decision makers, academics and regular people when you bring it up (as happens with street harassment).

While learning about the anti-sexual harassment movement is not new to me, I’ve never delved very far into it. As my first step, I’m half-way through Carrie Baker’s fascinating and well-documented book, The Women’s Movement Against Sexual Harassment. Attending the Anita Hill conference was another step and now, for my next step, I plan to connect with scholars and activists I heard and met there.

Questions for You

If you attended the conference, what are your takeaways?

And, a question for anyone, do you have thoughts about what we in the anti-street harassment “movement” can learn from Anita Hill and related efforts to end workplace sexual harassment?

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Watch the Anita Hill Summit Live October 15

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Cross-posted from what I wrote for AAUW’s blog:

Twenty years ago this week, Professor Anita Hill testified about sexual harassment before the Senate Judiciary Committee during the confirmation hearings for then-Supreme Court justice nominee Clarence Thomas. Hill used to work for Thomas and felt it was her duty to share her experiences of sexual harassment in her workplace. In the end, Thomas was still appointed as a justice, and he continues to be one today.

Two decades later, it is clear that the hearings were a pivotal moment in our nation’s history.

Working women across the nation identified with what Hill said, and her testimony opened up the floodgates. In record numbers, women shared their sexual harassment stories, and in just a few years, the number of sexual harassment complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission doubled.

Hill’s testimony ultimately changed how we think about sexual harassment. Before, it was seen as a personal problem and something women should handle with a sense of humor or thick skin. Hill’s testimony helped people understand that sexual harassment is discrimination and a tactic that both men and women use to oust others from a workplace.

The disbelieving, hostile way the all-male Senate Judiciary Committee treated Hill and the subsequent confirmation of Thomas to the Supreme Court led to several women being elected to the Senate the following election year in what was dubbed the “Year of the Woman.”

Tomorrow, Saturday, October 15, Hunter College in New York City is hosting a daylong summit on workplace sexual harassment, and Hill is the keynote speaker. Panelists will host sessions such as What Happened, What Does Anita Hill Mean to You, and What Have We Learned in 20 Years and What Comes Next?

Stop Street Harassment is one of the many conference co-sponsors, and we will host one of the lunchtime discussions. Ours will focus on the sexual harassment of teenagers in schools and on the streets.

For the majority of you who cannot be there, you can watch via live streaming on the conference website. If you’re on Twitter, follow @anitahill20 and view live updates by following the hashtag #AnitaHill.

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Talking Street Harassment with a Congresswoman and an NPR host

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Eleanor Holmes Norton and Michel Martin

Today I talked about street harassment with Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC) and NPR’s Michel Martin, host of the afternoon show Tell Me More.

How did I get to have a conversation about street harassment with such amazing women?

Well, I had the privilege of attending a conference at Georgetown Law Center that commemorates the 20 years since Professor Anita Hill testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee about how Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her when she worked for him. Her testimony was part of his confirmation hearings for the U.S. Supreme Court. The Senators treated her abominably, and Thomas was appointed as a Justice.

Working women across the nation identified with what Hill said and seeing her talk about something so personal and taboo on live television opened up the floodgates.

Anita Hill

Women started sharing their sexual harassment stories too. Hill’s testimony ultimately changed how we think about sexual harassment and it was a pivotal moment in our nation’s history. Plus, the way the men in the Senate treated Hill led women to vote women candidates into political office in numbers that have never been matched.

Today at the conference, law professors, media experts, and feminist activists talked about where we are today with regards to workplace sexual harassment and the impact the hearings has had on race and gender in our society. Hill was the closing speaker and it was an honor to hear from her.

But this post focuses on my conversation with Delegate Norton and Ms. Martin.

In the mid-afternoon, Martin sat down with Norton and asked her questions about what the hearing was like from her perspective as a new Congresswoman and as the former head of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) who helped draft the original workplace sexual harassment policies. Martin was a white house correspondent at the time of the hearing and she shared a bit about her perspective. Both women provided fascinating insight into a national event I did not know was occurring at the time (I was eight years old) but one that paved the way for my anti-street harassment activism and the work I do at AAUW on sexual harassment in schools and the workplace.

After their illuminating conversation, there was time for questions from the audience. Without formulating my thoughts, I jumped up, amazed to have an opportunity to ask them their thoughts on applying lessons learned from workplace sexual harassment to current efforts around street harassment. I was not my most articulate and flubbed a bit, but I got into a grove during some of my responses back to them.

Norton spoke first. It quickly became clear she didn’t understand what I meant by “sexual harassment that happens in public places” and so I had to explain street harassment to this long-time feminist and leader in the sexual harassment movement. It reminded me just how normalized street harassment is and/or how rarely it must happen to someone of Norton’s privileged position if she did not know much about it despite working on sexual harassment issues, often in a leadership position, since the mid-1970s.

Martin, on the other hand, knew exactly what I was talking about and helped me explain it to Norton. In fact, Martin helped everyone in the room understand the issue vividly by sharing a story. She said when she was a white house correspondent she regularly plotted her route through Lafayette Park based on how many potential harassers she saw. She’d forgotten about having to do that, she said, but today her memory of that experience seemed to help her understand why ending street harassment matters.

While I didn’t mean for Norton to solely talk about how to use laws to address street harassment, once she knew what I was talking about, that is where her mind went because of her legal background. She said verbal comments are protected by The First Amendment (freedom of speech) and it would be difficult to prosecute strangers. A few legal scholars have written compelling articles about the law and street harassment and The First Amendment barrier can be overcome. Fighting words, hate crimes, intention to inflict emotional distress: none of these are protected by The First Amendment and a lot of street harassment could be considered one or all of those. (I wasn’t fast enough on my feet to respond with this information but Martin noted the fighting words exception and compared men calling a woman “bitch” to using racial slurs.)

Further, why is it yelling, “Fire” in a building unprotected by the First Amendment (and illegal), but a middle-age man is allowed to walk behind a college-age young woman and say, “This is what I like right here, these are the kinds of girls I want to f*ck right here. This ones’ gonna get it” and then threaten to rape her and pull down her shirt before two bystanders intervened? That’s protected by the First Amendment? By the way, even with two witnesses, the police said nothing “serious” had happened and the poor student had to continue on to class and take an exam.

That is not right.

Additionally, Independence and Columbia, Missouri, passed a city ordinance against harassing pedestrians and bicyclists from cars and Los Angeles passed one against motorists harassing pedestrians. It can be done if we want it to be done. (Again, I didn’t think fast enough to respond with this information.)

I don’t think a law would be the most effective way to stop street harassment and I know there are a lot of valid concerns with using laws to regulate street harassment and racial-profiling-happy police to enforce them. But I also think a carefully worded law could help change social attitudes and it may give some people cause to pause before harassing.

When I mentioned groping in my definition of street harassment, Norton said that was already illegal and women should report gropers. Then she stated how lots of groping occurs in “Arab countries” where women face so much oppression. I was taken aback. Yes, groping is a big problem in countries like Egypt and Yemen but, as I discuss in my book and as stories submitted to my blog regularly show, it also is in countries like Japan, Italy, and, PS, the USA! Street harassment is a global problem.

She concluded by saying she doesn’t think there can be a law to regulate street harassment, but she thinks consciousness-raising is the key and that things like SlutWalks are best because they tell men that “the behaviors are forbidden.”

While I appreciate SlutWalks (and spoke at SlutWalk DC) and love consciousness-raising tactics, they can’t be the only solution! So many street harassers are grown men who harass teenage girls. They know their behavior is wrong and that it is, in Norton’s words, “forbidden.” They are not held accountable; there are no consequences, so they continue to harass. SlutWalks alone will not change that.

I didn’t want to take up more time because others had questions but WOW was there a lot I would have liked to say.

Fortunately, Martin really did seem to understand what I was talking about and she said she’d be interested in having me on her show. I’m mailing her a copy of my book tomorrow and I hope she will decide to have me (and possibly some other local DC street harassment activists) on her show.

And if am on her show, I hope Norton will listen so she can learn more about street harassment. More importantly, I hope one day Norton can have time to speak to youth in her community who face street harassment daily so she can understand its prevalence and impact. If she understood, I think she’d be a big ally. After all, she’s been a leader on the issue of sexual harassment for nearly 40 years.

With the growing number of commemorations of the Hill-Thomas hearings (I’ll attend another conference about workplace sexual harassment with Hill as the keynote at Hunter College on October 15), I hope anti-street harassment activists can find similar opportunities to draw attention to street harassment and hopefully inspire major feminist leaders to learn more and address it, too.

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