Explicit

Anita Hill

Published Sep 21, 2021, 7:30 AM

Anita Hill is an activist, professor, and author most well-known for her incredibly brave testimony during the 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Anita joins Sophia on the podcast today to talk about how we can’t deal with the gender-based violence problem without dealing with racism, what we must do to reach equality, her personal evolution, her book Believing, and so much more. 


Executive Producers: Sophia Bush & Rabbit Grin Productions

Associate Producers: Samantha Skelton & Mica Sangiacomo

Editor: Josh Windisch

Artwork by the Hoodzpah Sisters

This show is brought to you by Brilliant Anatomy

Hi, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome back to Work in Progress. Today's incredible guest is a familiar name to anyone who follows politics or law. I am thrilled to get to talk with Anita Hill, activist, professor, and author. Anita is probably most well known for her incredibly brave testimony during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Justice Clarence Thomas, who she accused of sexual harassment, but her presence in the fight against gender violence and sexual harassment has only strengthened since she is a leader of the movement and a fierce ally to women everywhere. Anita has written two books on the issue of gender violence and discrimination, Speaking Truth to Power and Reimagining Equality. Her third book, Believing Our Thirty Year Journey to End Gender Violence, is coming out this year. I am so looking forward to speaking to Anita about writing the book, her thirty years of learning, which she's offering to us through the lens of her expertise, and about where her fight has taken her for the past three decades. But most of all, I'm looking forward to learning more about Anita Hill, the person behind the icon. So without further ado, let's get to it with the brilliant Anita Hill. Anita, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. I'm I'm so thrilled to have you here, and I just I have a million questions. Um, but I'm trying to call my you know, um, active social change worker, fangirl heart looking at you on zoom right now, and remember that I have a I have a formula, and there's a way I asked questions of people. So well, we will have a great conversation. I'm sure. I'm really happy to be here and engaging with you. Thank you. I hope that puts you a little bit more. It does, honestly it does. Um. I mean there's so much going on in your life currently and obviously these sort of famous moments in our national history that that you have advocated through. Um, but I want to go back even farther if I may, because so many of us know Anita Hill, this incredible attorney, this change worker, this activist, and I wonder, I wonder who you were when you were a little girl. You know, what what your life was like when you were saying, I don't know, eight or ten years old, what were you will ways, the sort of outspoken defender or were you in a completely different kind of headspace as a as a young child. Oh, as a child, I really was pretty bookished, honestly, and I was. I really wanted to be a scientist. When I was growing up and thinking about what I wanted to do. Um, you know, I'd run through all the different things that the young girls and that at that time thought about, Oh I could be a secretary or I could be a social worker. And then I discovered science and Matt and I loved them both. And the quick story about my decision to not go into science but to go into law came about my freshman year in college when I told my freshman advisor that I wanted to be too major in biology, and my advisor said, well, you know, science is pretty hard, and I think you really should try something a little bit easier. And not knowing that I could actually reject him entirely, I did, you know, I sort of deferred because I thought they were right. I thought advisors knew what they were doing. And you know, when I think back on it, I think, first of all, I did do something, and it wasn't easier was going to law school. And and i've certainly had it tried to have an impact on situations like mine. But I would I had, I would hope that today some advisor would say, you know, science hard, but you've got good scores, you've got good grades. Let's let's make sure we know exactly what you need to be successful. Uh. And I think that's kind of my thinking today, And that's what I want to do for everyone who gets classified as not capable or you know, you're just not right for that position or that job or or that career. And I imagine, you know, you touched on it. You said the the opportunities that were available to girls, you know, things that you phrased it differently, but you you sort of referenced what women were expected, you know, to do in the era. And I and I wonder about that when you think about this advisor, this man who who essentially was saying like, oh, little lady, I don't know if you can handle it. I wonder if now or or if since he's gone, wow, I really misjudged Anita Hill. You know, I think those things happened so frequently, and it's so much a part of that person subconscious that they don't even think about it, that they think, oh, I was right. Even though she has been successful, I still believe that I was right to dissuade her from going into science. When you mentioned that that's sort of you know, conscious or unconscious. I think about this moment we're in where we're talking about systems how they affect people, and and we talk a lot about what bias looks like, an unconscious bias, and I wonder about that man's unconscious bias, perhaps, you know, if he didn't realize what he was doing, dissuading a young woman. And that feels like part of, you know, where we'll go in this conversation talking about this modern moment where we're unpacking you know, gender politics and the dynamics of how so much systematic oppression has these intersections across oppressed groups. And I can't help but think again, you know about your story this, You know, this girl who was the youngest of thirteen children, um, who loved science and was bookish, as you said, who also was growing up during the civil rights movement? Was that something that you were aware of? Was was that a topic of discussion around your very large dinner table with your family? How How did that you know? Shape you consciously er or maybe unconsciously at the time. Well being the youngest of thirteen children was really helpful in terms of even in hindsight of seeing how bias were you know, I had third twelve siblings older, and ten of them had graduated from segregated schools. Um three of us went to integrated schools. So there was this almost as though my children, my parents, in terms of social progress, raised two different families. We didn't talk about it though, I mean we didn't talk about it. We didn't talk specifically in many ways about it, but it was always understood that in order to be accepted, to get ahead, to even get what was due to you, um, you had to work twice as hard. And there was this urgency that my parents had, um, particularly my mother, that we were all going to be educated and that we were perhaps not living in a time where we could expect to be treated equally, but she was going to prepare us for that time when we would be treated equally. And so you know, I have to give her credit for you know, grooming us really to deal with racism and sexism and following through on what it meant for her to get us there. I mean in teaching us, really coaching us every day nearly uh, to make sure that that we could be as successful as anyone. It is interesting that we talk about unconscious bias and and how it works today and how it works on the in terms of the subjects that I'm talking about in my book Believing. I mean, I asked people often, how often have you heard the words not so bad applied to a situation that you're living where people tell you, Oh, it's you know that thing that you that happened to you, that's that's not really that bad, or maybe you shouldn't make a big deal out of it, or you know, it's you know, that's just normal. That's just what men do or just what boys do, um and you just have to live with it. Or even if you're a male, you know you've got a man up. If somebody is bullying you, abbusive to you. I mean that to me is one of the chief problems with gender rates violence that we literally groom people to accept it from a very early age. And what happens is that you hear that message over and over, and if you are victimized, then you assume that the same message still applies, that it's not so bad. Somebody's going to tell you that, you know, Arlen Spector told me that and so. But it wasn't the first time I've heard it. It's not the first time any of us has heard it. I that I think what we need to understand is that it's not just a problem for victims and survivors. It is a problem of grooming abusers to you know, just accept that what bad behavior should be tolerated. It's a it's a problem for observers who are seeing it and witnessing it and aren't speaking up as bystanders because they also have been that's not so bad. And so I think that's one of the places that where you need to really start. When we're dealing with this as a systemic problem and a structural problem, we also need to start with culture. What is the culture telling us about gender based violence that is leading to it happening often and no accountability for it? Absolutely. I mean, I think about some of the adages and you mentioned, you know, this idea of boys will be boys. Uh, you get told from a young age if a boy hits you on the playground, oh, that's because he likes you. You know, you you literally get encouraged to believe that violence is romantic. And I think about the kind of complexity which you referenced in what men are told man up. Women are told they're being too sensitive and taking things personally and that it's not that bad. And men are being told that essentially, they're only acceptable persona is strength, and their only acceptable emotional expression is anger. So then we wonder why, by the age of twenty two, one in four women has been assaulted already because men are taught that violence is the only thing they can do and be a man, and and women are cultured over and over again it wasn't that bad. Oh he didn't mean it. Oh you know, don't don't ruin his future. Um. I recall, and it was so shocking and it took me a while to process. I was assaulted by a coworker and the response from my boss when I went to get help was I'm just so relieved he didn't try to rape you. Yeah, So immediately I was being told there was an acknowledgment that it was sexual violence, and there was the unspoken it's not that bad because the worst, the quote worst thing didn't happen to you, So it's not, I mean that didn't happen. There were already excuses being made. And it took me years of trying to understand, as you said, the culture that I was in to make sense of the failings of my workplace two in any way, shape or form adequately deal with this. And and I think about the people I went to to kind of learn lessons from, and and one of those people, you know, without you knowing, was you. I went back to your testimony, I went back to articles that you've written, I went back to talks that you've given. I went back to my favorite Gloria Steinham book and I spoke to her at length about how these things happen. And what has also a mainated for me is we talk about the intersection of sexual violence and racism, and how sexism and racism are so deeply connected. And I can't wait to pick your brain about this. And the other part that I think we don't acknowledge that I had to come to terms with in my workplace experience was, Oh, there's also such a scarcity in our economy. We don't have social safety nets, so people are so terrified to quote unquote rock the boat at their job. God forbid, the job drives up, God forbid, the show gets canceled. Oh my god, what if I speak up in defense of that person and I get fired? How will I live? And people who are afraid for their future security are very unwilling to disturb their present, even if they're present. Is violent? Yeah, I mean, your situation really does describe what happens over and over again, time and time again. And you know, I don't know where do we even begin to sort of figure out where to go with that. I mean, it's it's almost you know what I tell people, this is not just a book about sexual harassment, which some people think it will be. This is a book really about this whole range of behavior and experiences a violence and aggression, from bullying to rape to sexual assault to you know, in my partner, violence to murder and you know, suicide, murder, suicides, and and it's such a big problem. It's such a thorny problem and a complicated problem because it is a mixture of culture and structures. And so I remember initially, when when I started looking at the problem thirty years ago, I expected that people would come to me and talk about sexual harassment. Was this woman wrote me. Suci described herself as a school teacher from Oregon, and she said, there will be waves of women behind you, and she was talking about you, and she was talking about other women your age who have come through these experiences and now have a language and way to talk about them. But at the time, we hardly even had developed a language to tell think about, and analyze and talk about what was going on in our lives. Even then, though I expected harassment to come up, I didn't expect all these other behaviors to come up. I didn't and I certainly didn't expect that men would come to me and say, you know, I've been abused too. And I felt the same response where people were blaming me for it or they were denying at and so what you know, it seems to me that we are talking about some problem that is so much a part of every aspect of our lives that we and that we cannot solve any one of those individual problems without looking at the whole and without taking care of, um, how we're going to solve all of them because we just can't pick them apart. They're so inter related in terms of how people experience it, how others respond to their experiences, and we have a complex problem, and it is a bit like boiling the ocean. I mean, your description of your situation brought in so many elements of this that to get at it you think about all the things that you have to to address. Let me let me be a little bit more specific and giving you an example from just your description when you were talking about that the way that people hand not even even if there is a process for getting some kind of justice or satisfaction or accounting for a problem, there are always these greater risks. And a person with not enough money, or whose job is tenuous, or who works in a business where you know you have to rely on your connections to get that next job, which is where entertainment is, then you must think very long and hard about whether it's worth the risk to even complain about what your problems. But in many cases there's no complaint process anyway. And what I have found is that the further away you are from the center of power in an organization or a system, the harder it is for you to be hurt m hm. And so some of us have managed to break through all those levels of oppression and silencing, but many people don't um and you know that's that's something that we have to take into account as we're thinking about solutions or how we're going to get beyond this well. And that's part of why I'm so thrilled that your latest book analyzes the spectrum you're talking about from you know, these slight microaggressions too, as you said, ending at the worst possible outcome of a murder suicide. To understand all the pieces, I believe is where we begin to find a solution in terms of how we behave interact, how we structure our workplaces. I am amazed when I think about, uh, this present moment, the thirt I was in feet, if you will, from which you are analyzing the systems that allow for this kind of behavior in the thirty years since your testimony. I mean, you're right. I think about the language we didn't have when I quit my job because of this harassment, when I had been going to you know, every power that be for four years reporting asking for help, and by the way, I would be classified as a person close to the center of power. I was the lead of a TV show and it didn't matter the moment I didn't grin and bear it. I was an enemy and the retaliation was unbearable and the whole experience was toxic and a mess. And I realized, you know, HR was a force and it was all ridiculous, and it really made me think about, how are we going to better advocate? If this is my experience in a quote position of power, what's happening to everybody else? And you know, the Harvey Weinstein case broke months later and we began having this national me too conversation. Granted Toronto Boke had begun it ten years ago or ten years before, but I know how much has changed in these last few years. I can't fathom what your experience must have been like in it's still the beginning of your career in law and politics, and you basically have to sit in front of the entire country because these hearings were televised and talk about your experience with sexual harassment, and no one had the language and and no one was having these conversations we're having now. What was running through your mind at that time during those hearings? How did you? How did you do it well? During the hearings, my job was to bring evidence about the fitness of Clarence Thomas to serve from the Supreme Court. That was my job. I knew enough about bias and oppression. Frankly, haven't grown up at the time that I did, and it's described by family situation to know that it is nearly impossible to change the minds of people who don't want to change and have no clear and can't figure out that they have an interest in changing um. And I'll get back to That's been one of the things that I'm trying to do with this book is to get people to see that we are suffering this colossal human cost. When we put all of these of yours together, there's a huge human cause that we are all bearing Lebronta. But I wasn't thinking about that. I was really thinking about how do I get my message across and help people understand that the way that an individual behaves in the workplace with regard to sexual harassment is a reflection on their qualification to sit in judgment of others. And so that was the that day, and then you know, I just wanted to get out alive. And I say that almost was a chuckle to day. But quite frankly, there was very little interest on the part of the committee in making sure that I was safe, because the retaliation did happen. It happened after. I mean, people presume that everything in that the day I testified and went home, but it didn't end. I mean, there was, you know, this effort to give me fired from my job, and you know, there were death threats, and so the committee did not respond to any of that um and they didn't hold a hearing. And this is what I keep saying, it's had they held a hearing that indicated to the public that they respect women's experiences in the workplace and that they understand that civil rights protections exists to stop these kinds of experiences, then it would have been a lot easier for me to go on with my life. I think that would have quieted much of the public blowback that I experienced. But then you move out of that, you move out from that. And I made a choice to understand it, to understand what was going on beyond my personal experience, and I did hear from and I continue to hear, and I've heard from thousands of people who have shared their experiences. And when I work today, it's because they are still out there wanting to be heard and then and believing that they deserve solutions and they want to be a part of calling out what those solutions are going to be. M M. You know, very often we think it's enough to ask survivors how they feel, you know, and some of this are some of these questions. Again this way we use language, We say to them, are you okay? Not because we necessarily care, you know, some of those questions are asked sincerely, so are not. But what we don't do enough of is asking survivors and victims what should we be doing, how can we stop this? And what would make you feel whole and feel that that we have experienced this moments of reckoning that we always claim to our happening when something like, you know, nineteen million tweets show up in the span of a few days. So that's why I'm I'm writing, That's why I keep working. It's not that I am trying to figure out how to redo. What I'm trying to figure out is how do we make sure it doesn't keep repeating itself? Because it does, because it does it and over every day, and and it is an experience of really, what where what is leadership doing? How are they performing in spaces that aren't on television? And why aren't they determined and commit it to take on this very difficult issue, to do the work that needs to be done to eliminate it. When you talk about the backlash, I the story is yours, and the sentiment is so familiar because every woman I've spoken with who's been through her own version of this has has gone through that in some way, and those of us who have had to do so publicly definitely do. And it's always the same. It's the retaliation, it's the death threats, it's the harassment that is ongoing. The react is the proof of the broken system, because the reaction is more violence against a woman who's experienced violence. And and I wonder for you because I imagine that it was traumatizing and terrifying to be sort of left out vulnerable after the hearing. What were there messages of support that cut through the noise that kind of kept you going and sustained you? Was it family who supported you? Like? What what kept you pressing forward for all of us when you could have so easily retreated and hidden? How did you do it? Well? I do have a wonderful family and I talk about my family and their support. It's it's been ongoing, it's never ending, and you know, it means everything, and they kept me alive. Interestingly, I had wonderfully supportive colleagues in my workplace. You know, I was still teaching, and you know, within a day or so after I testified, I had to go back and teach my class, and you know, you have to stand in there in front of sixties students and there you are the woman that's just been publicly shamed on television, and you just wonder what that's going to do to the classroom dynamics. I was so proud and and just heart warm by the student reactions to me, and really look back and knowing that I was not a hundred percent, but that they carried me in that classroom experience and made the classroom experience one of those places where I could feel I could go in and know that I could make a contribution and that I had the support of the people in that room. And so I consider myself very fortunate because I know that I'm in the minority in that respect. I know that once these things happen in people co public that in most instances, especially that I know of, that support is not there. It's lacking some place or another. Either you don't have the family support, or you don't have the colleague support, or you don't have your clients support, or you don't have your supervisor support, or you really don't feel like you have the support of the society at large. And so I I consider my self very privileged, even though people will probably saying, well, how can you think of that yourself in that way? I do because I know what all of those things meant to me, to my survival and then to my ability to take that arians and see beyond myself, to see through those letters, and those letters were a part of my growth too. I had so much going for me, and part of that healing that took place was first understanding that I was not alone, that there were others out there, and secondly that I had training that would allow me to make sense not only of my experience, but of the experiences of others as well. And I decided that I was going to use that training, that I was going to use the fact that I had a lot of degree and that my job was to analyze things and analyze problems and come up with ways to think about them differently and talk them differently, to unpack and then rebuild for what I believe would be a better world for everyone. When you think about designing a better world and using the law and and using that toolkit that you had, that strikes me as feeling so hopeful. And and I will admit that is usually where, you know, despite my sacred rage when I witness injustice or or how frustrated I feel with broken systems, I believe in us. And and I think that's what makes at times it feels so painful when you see us being failed. And I can't imagine what it was like to, you know, testify and then see Clarence Thomas be appointed as a justice to the Supreme Court anyway, and then to watch the Kavanaugh hearings in two thousand eighteen. For all of us, we just kept saying, it's history repeating itself. It's it's Anita Hill all over again. And I'm very curious how, in seeing it happen again decades apart, you can point to you know, the maths, the law and see a way forward. First of all, I really can reach a conclusion that you know, I did not fail in that the years had taught me and I had seen enough action and change. The fact that the number of people complaining about sexual harassment doubled in the years following the hearing. The fact that we had record numbers of women running for office in part because they believed that they needed better representation that they were not getting from male politicians. The fact that we did began this new conversation in a way of thinking, and that really literally thousands of students have gone through classes and studied under professors who have been teaching us differently about sexual harassment and assault. The fact that we have this emerging concept called intersectionality, where it takes into account race and gender together and multiple oppressions that people experience to understand the enormity of problems of gender violence. I believe we were building a platform, and while the outcome might seem like failure too many people, the fact that even a minority of people heard us and heard that testimony, and and they have gone on to respond to it through their own work was enough for me to know that the world had changed since n And that's why, you know, when when happened in the kavanaughire happened, I saw this as a moment where we could talk about what that hearing should be. It should treat Christine boss Ford with respect. It should give her an opportunity we heard outside of bias and noise and and the investigation that was completely one sided and really under the control of someone who was his sponsor, who was Kavanaughs sponsor. So it was limited and we would be heard. If we made sure that this is what could happen, that would be better for everyone involved and certainly for the public that wanted something more. I wanted personally, you know, I just desperate did not want and the Kavanaugh hearing to be a repeat of the Thomas hearing. I desperately wanted something different, and not just in terms of the outcome, but in terms of the process itself. I didn't get much difference, But it doesn't mean that I believe that nothing has changed. I think coming out of that Kavanaugh hearing, people were in fact saying we should not go forward with this nomination. The majority of people in the public, and they were more likely to listen two complaints about the process, to be outraged by the way the investigation unfold that and was limited, and information that would be useful was held back. Yeah, so we have changed. Unfortunately, the leadership in the Senate Judiciary Committee hasn't. And that's why I think in terms of our solutions, we have to focus on leadership making tough choices and having courage to follow through on those choices, and leadership holding us to the best standards, not the most average and for the most convenient, the most politically convenient standards is what we have gotten in those two hearings, and I suspect that those are simply a reflection of what is happening throughout all of these scandals that you see in politics. However, there seems to be something a little different now going on in terms of what has happened with Andrew Kuama. I guess what frustrates me though, is watching, you know, watching Mitch McConnell nuke the nuke the filibuster multiple times to confirm Trump's judges to the Supreme Court, and then watching the Democrats refused to do the same to solidify our voting rights when we understand that it's electing people who represent us that gets us better solutions. As you said after your appearance before the Judiciary Committee, record numbers of women started running for office and winning their elections, and and those numbers are continuing today. And we saw a huge wave of it after and I am so emboldened by and inspired by that shift. And I can't imagine what it must feel like for you to know that that demographic shift is part of your legacy. And I want more people in those elected positions, as you said, to not make politically convenient choices, but to make choices that give us a better national legacy. Well, and you're right, But first of all, they have to see that this is part of a national legacy. They have to see that the harm that is happening. Um two, Each individual who experiences violence because of their gender or because of the way they express their gender is harm to everyone. I mean, think about it. I don't think that you can name any one of our national institutions, and by that I mean things like colleges, elementary schools, and businesses. You can think about specific sectors entertainment. We can think about the MILLI Harry, we can think about this White House, the Congress. I mean we every one of our public institution has been riddled with problems of sexual misconduct of some former than another and in many cases violent misconduct you can't name it. So how in the world can we avoid seeing that this problem is a public crisis. It's not the individual, personal, sort of situational crisis that politicians like to sort of balkanize the problem too. It is really something that has to do with the integrity of our country and and really, you know, our ability to claim that we are a country that believes in equal justice. So we've got to we've got to we've got to see it as such, and we have to treat it as such. And we've got to find ways to commit. And and when I say we, what I mean is we've got to have leadership that does but we have to push them too. This is not something that is happening on their own. This public crisis. You know, we've made choices about what's a public crisis. We've talked about the pandemic being a public crisis. We've talked about racism and mily soelf being a public crisis. Um, we've talked about climate change as a public crisis. Now think about how pervasive and corrosive this gender violence is. There's no reason that this does not rise to the level of a public crisis. It is hurting us in many ways and just about every institution that we look at, and that it means it's corrupting our institutions. So the problem is widespread. Its exists in almost every location that people exist in. It's intergenerational because we keep passing on the same kinds of language and policies and processes and and behavior from one generation to the next. And and this is really important. It gets visited the most harshly on the backs of the vulnerable populations. And so it means that we are never going to reach equality if we continue to allow this scourge to exist without treating it. You know, I am often just struck by how little people are willing to to speak about the problem. I mean, people will read stories in the newspaper and you know, they'll some people will say, Okay, well we fixed us, and that's only because they see one case, right, But what we've not really had a public conversation that deals with the whole love the problem. Well, and I think you're right, because we are not addressing sexual violence and sexual harassment as a public health crisis. And it is and I do believe that the importance of women running for office, and the demographic shift that you helped to begin has led us to the moment where we are having these conversations publicly. But I do feel that there are still a lot of people who are willing to read the article but treat the the conversation itself like a you know, brown paper bag, bottom shelf kind of thing. Oh well, that we don't we don't talk about that. There's some strange um stigma or shame, and and that feels so problematic because the silence enables the violence, and the unwillingness to take it seriously creates a world in which, as you mentioned before, someone like and Andrew Cuomo can say, you know, I'm not a harasser. I'm I'm affectionate. It's my culture and think that that's okay. And by the way, the irony is not lost on me that Andrew Cuomo, through the advocacy of Times UP, enacted changes to the New York state law to elongate the statute of limitations since they had one of the shortest for sexual violence. Literally, all of the laws that he passed to make it more possible to prosecute sex offenders are the laws that are now going to get him into bubble for his behavior. I'm like, you literally just passed laws to give us the power to go after our abusers in New York while you were abusing women in your office. Hello. How that cognitive dissonance is. I mean, it's breathtaking to me, and it speaks, in my opinion, to the enormity of the cultural issue that is our unwillingness to take this seriously and treat it like a public health crisis. As you said, well, it's not only a public health crisis, but but you know, there is also this theory that there are people who do good in one area and they believe that that doing good in this area gives them a path on every bad behavior that they have. But you know, it's not just a public health crisis. And that is what I mean. If the implications, let's just say, for sexual harassment alone, sexual harassment in the workplace is costly. There is an economic impact, but we and our government hasn't measured it. Now. We talk about, you know, economic growth, and you know, we talk about how our houses that are built, but we don't talk about the negative sides of economic growth that are occurring because of sexual harassment and other kinds of violence women even you know, the domestic violence has an impact on women's lives and their careers and their economic security, and so it's an economic crisis or women. It's impacting our economy. But when Senators worn In Guildebrand and Patty Murphy and Diane Feinstein wrote to our government authorities telling them are asking them to provide us with information about exactly what the economic impact is, the response I got was, we don't have the figures. We haven't done the calculation. Um, we so we really don't know. We know that it has housing impact, we know that has health impact, we know that you know, economic security, and there's an impact because of litigation that is filed, but we haven't calculated. So you know, you know, there's that old saw you can't fix what you don't measure. But there are the other part of that is we measure what we care about, and if we really cared about it, we have to dedicate ourselves to measure it understanding its impact, Understanding as I said, this colossal human cost on more than just our health but general welfare. Are feelings of safety and security. Um that then impacts our children. So I think you know, intergenerational. The problem is bigger than our officials are understanding it to be, and therefore their solutions are limited. Well, and when you when you talk about the impacts you know not only on survivors, but on their families, and and the fact that we don't have the data on the economy that feels important because to your point earlier in the conversation, you said, this damage is all of us, including the perpetrators, and that is the the emotional and physical and psychological impact. And when we look then at what it does to the economy, the amount of money withheld from the economy because of this suffering, because of this damage, because of the lack of gender parity and pay all of this, they're all versions of the oppression, largely of women. And everyone would benefit from us living in inequitable society, even the people at the top, they would benefit more. The the economic pie would be larger for the whole country, not just us. And and it's those kinds of facts, you know, where you meet the moral core of the issue with the mathematical information about the economy and the studies of generational effect. And that's where I love to be, is in the center of where all of these things meet. And it's it's the reason that I think your book which we've been referencing, Believing Um. The full title for our listeners is Believing our thirty year journey to and Gender Violence. And you speak to all of these braw It ends of many spectrums and one that you touched on earlier, which which I would love to ask about specifically, because we see a withholding um not only of experience, but of the economy in gender violence. And we see the same that is caused by racism. And and you say, I'm going to directly quote you if you don't mind me quoting you to you, but I want people at home to hear this. You said, there will be no complete elimination of gender based violence until racism and its many forms is identified and addressed. But the reverse is also true. Can you explain to people listening why gender based violence and racism are are so intertwined and and so deeply linked. No, it's it is really hard to explain it. But let me give you some examples, and then we can talk about whether or not those way sense and what we need, what more we need to say. So, first of all, we have the data. We know, for example, that Native American women experience sexual assault at a rate of about fifties ex percent. We have figures, and these figures are always lower than actuality. These are reported figures. We have figures and say that overall women experience when and for women experience sexual assault. So look at the numbers for Native women. And we also know that or so by some calculations, including a Justice Department, that those assaults are committed by non Native men m HM, which helps us to under to really understand the racial dynamics that are going on. We know, for example, that black women are murdered at twice the rate murdered by men. It twice the rate that other women, all other women are are murdered. And we know that women of color experience sexual harassment at a higher rate then white women. So here we are, We've got all this information about how these behaviors get visited on women of color that in all by all indications that it's not just because they're women, but it's because they are Asian women or Asian American women, or because they are Black women, or because they are Native American women. That's part of the calculus. But we have rules and just say, okay, let's treat all women the same. You're not going to be able to get wed of the problem that these women experience, even if you have something called gender equality, even if you are taking care of gender issues, because there will always be that element of racism that will make them particularly vulnerable. So that margin, the gap between what let's a white women experience and Native American women experience could will theoretically still be there because they are Native American um And so that's part of what I want people to understand about how race intersects and combines and exacerbates the problem of gender violence. The other part of what I want to talk about is that women of color are often put in this terrible position. I'm not being able to complain about their problems, especially where their abuser is another person of color, because there is so much racism that exists in this country that they know that by complaining they are going to bring in more racist systems into their communities. They know they have to go to these racist systems to complain, and many of them don't want to do it. I hear from young black women who say, how can I move forward with my complaint? Against a black man and not be told that I'm a traitor to my race. But on the other hand, I hear from young black men who say, I really support your effort to end violence against women. I have sisters, I have a mother, I have friends. I know the problem, But they also know about our history of abusing and accusing black men of things that they have not done. All of these things are based on stereotypes and bias, racial bias, and so we are caught and central to that tension is racism. But what happens is that it causes us not to be able to deal with a problem of gender violence. And so it is a problem that I see over and over again. It's one of those things that we don't talk about. We don't talk about violence against men either. Yeah, yeah, we don't talk about it, except too in some cases tell men that they need to man up and respond with violence, and that's the way to stop it. But the way that we sort of tried to pigeonhole and simply oversimplify violence against women when it comes to race, when it comes to sexual identity, is also sort of keeping us back, you know. And what happens is that people air on the side very often of not bringing harm into the communities, and so they don't engage these the systems that are not meant to help them, that have been historically caused them more harm than good. Yeah, so we've got a very complicated problem. We cannot deal with the gender violence problem them without dealing with racism, and we can't deal with racism without dealing with the gender violence problem. I think it's so helpful for people to hear and and I think it really clarifies how race and sex are often weaponized. You know, when we think about some of our most impactful historical examples, some of the darkest stains on American history. When you think about the Tulsa race massacre that began out of racism, and the accusation was this young black man attacked a white woman and an elevator, but he didn't, but it was a way to weaponize her sex and his race. And what came of that, I mean, hundreds of people being murdered. By the way, going back to the economy, you know, two point nine million dollars then withheld in unpaid insurance claims, which is worth five hundred million dollar dollars now withheld from the black community in Oklahoma. That's a vacuum for the whole economy born out of an incendiary moment of racism that weaponized sex. It happened to Emmett Till Supposedly this young boy whistled at a white woman, who, by the way, years later admitted he never did such a thing, and this boy was brutally murdered. There there are examples of intersections of racist and sexist violence and how in through the lens of white supremacy, the folks in that sort of position of supremacist power can harm everyone. And and when you think about, or when I think about, I should say, what the legacy of that kind of violence looks like. And and violence that gets set on an entire community, and the violence that has been set against communities of color and in particular the Black community, and the data that's come out about, you know, racist policies that were literally designed to pull fathers out of communities, to destabilize communities, to work with the carceral system and imprison millions of people. I would struggle to interact in that system with my community at all. I struggle with it as a woman, as a woman who has experienced sexual violence. I struggle because reporting didn't help me put a target on my back. It was traumatizing, it was it created further violence. And so when women say to me, I don't want to go talk to those people, I understand, And yet I know we all say, but we have to and will support you, and we can do it together. And I will say, similarly to what you mentioned about your family we earlier, when you have a support system, you can navigate it, but it doesn't mean it's easy. And I offer, you know, a historical example, a portion of a personal story and a reference to a personal story you told earlier to our audience to try to kind of crystallize how infectiously interconnected these systems are. Because you're right, if we do not root out both racism and sexism new it's almost like getting a piece of a tumor but not the whole thing, and then a bunch of new tumors pop up. Unless we fix those root issues, we're never going to heal the illness of all of these kinds of violence. Yeah, and the and as you say, the racism is a tool and the sexism is a tool. And when it comes down to it, you know, I think the feminists would say that, you know, the beneficiary is patriarchy. But what we are coming to terms with, and I believe we're coming to understand that that is not worth saving, that the patriarchy is not worth saving, and it's causing too much harm. And so that's where we have to be to understand why women are are devalued in so many parts of our lives. Why we you know, we have a Supreme Court in in the case of the United States versus Morrison, say that Congress exceeds its stority to and act protections for women against violence because women's and the abuse the experience has no impact on interstate commerce. Oh of course it does. And there's mound of evidence it says it does. There wasn't two thousand when the case was decided. There was mounds of evidence, But we were allowing these these ideas about patriarchy and who has worth to control our legal decisions. And that continues today. So we do have a long way to go. And and when I hear you talk, I hear this sense of I want to hope. I really do want to hope, But my goodness, there's so much we have to dig our way out of and you're absolutely right. But I'm still of the belief that we have to continue, we have to continue to believe that we are worth it, and that change is possible. And you know, when I go back and I think about my life, change is possible, and I think about the life of my My mother lived. You know, she was born in leven and jim Crow, Arkansas, and moved to jim Crow, Oklahoma. You know when she was a little girl. I mean, things changed dramatically in her life. She lived to be ninety, so she gets to see some of that change, and she saw it in the lives of her children. I don't know that I'll live to ninety. I'd like to maybe I'd like to live even longer than that. But the last thirty years things have changed. The conversation have changed. You know, there would not be a program on any station or any platform that would be talking about these issues in the way that we are talking, right, and that is where society begins to build the change that we need. So I have a question about that change that feels really pressing now because we're talking about why we do hold hope and the amount of change we've seen in the amount of winds we've had, including all the women have been elected to office, and and the way we're having these conversations now, and something that really sticks out to me when I think about how much backsliding happened in the last presidential administration for women. You know, we horrifically elected a man to the highest office in the land who bragged about grabbing women by the pussy, and uh, for some reason, that was okay in the same way that this lie about interstate commerce was okay because in some rooms people don't believe women like us deserve a voice or bodily autonomy. And when we think about generational change, it's not lost on me that we currently have a president, you know, President Biden, who during the Obama Biden administration when he was the Vice president, made gender violence his cause. He helped to launch It's on Us as a White House governmental program to end sexual violence. And yet when language was different and our understanding of systems was different thirty years ago, when you testified in front of the Judiciary Committee, Joe Biden was as dismissive of view as everybody else. And he has since apologized to you for his role in the in those hearings and you actually endorsed him for president, and that to me feels like, you know, for anyone out there who thinks we live in an age of cancel culture, I'm like, actually, we just want you to learn and do better, and once you do better, you can come back to the fold. Um. I'm I'm really curious about you know, that journey that, as fate would have it, you've been on with the president. What has it been like to see someone, you know, go from the power of a senator to the power of a vice president to the power of president who has made efforts to grow and change his conversation. What what has that been like for the two of you. Well, my message to Joe Biden that is in the book is that you can do more. Yes, you can do more. You are president of the United States. You can take on this problem. You can have a courage. You can make a commitment to boil the ocean, to really interrogate, to to make sure that all of the agencies under your executive authority are affirmatively approaching the problem of gender violence in in ways that support victims and survivors, whether it's you know, Department of Housing, education, Health in human services, all of Labor Department, all of those are you know, these are places where you have absolute authority and you can control, and so it is on us. It is on us, but it is in particular it's on you, Joe Biden, and that is that's where it has to start. It has to start with the president. I'm not sure that Joe Biden's transition is complete, it kind of. It really does depend on how he governs as president. When you have that platform and that power that really exceeds what anybody else in this country he has, no matter what people say, I mean, you've got that platform where you can you can say, you know, as he did when he was Vice president and left the Obama administration, I'm going to cure cancer. He could say I'm going to fix gender based violence. I'm gonna fix this problem because it's so meaningful to me. I mean, and I know he has a White House office that's focus on gender equity, but this has to be a priority. You know, the other part of your question really is goes to what is that personal evolution? I think for me, the personal evolution is to realize that one we can't look for the perfect savior in this work. I mean, that's what we we you know, we look for the the villain and then the hero. But what we have to realize is that is that individuals are human and they have to be treated like what you know. In addition to calling on Joe Biden to respond to this crisis, you know, I've also said that there should be an investigation into the complaint of Terra Read because we are human and because all of us are human, and we need to be able to, one way or the other put to rest accusations against the people who are in leadership. So it's not as though I'm saying, you know, Joe Biden has evolved now to some status that we have to um to glorify. But I am saying that we can call on our leaders to be accountable and in this and and I'll just say, for me, this whole ideal accountability feels even much more urgent after a year, the year of when it was the whole world was looking at problems, all kinds of problems, including gender violence, which surge during COVID and during the pandemic, when we were saying it's finally time for us to see some of these problems. Yeah, we have to. And I think you're right. You know, you can look at someone who's had a public career as long as the president has and appreciate their growth and say, but prove to me how much you've grown, do more you've gotten here? What's next? What comes next? And and I agree with you. I I want to see accountability in Washington, period. I want to see women be listened to. Period. I'm infuriated that the Department of Justice decided to take Trump's side in the E. G. And Carol case. He is under court order to submit his d n A in the rape case and just won't do it, And apparently it is getting away with it because he's a former president. Twenty six women have accused him of sexual assault, there's never been an investigation. Matt Gates ven mode a sex trafficker and is still an elected official. I mean, what is happening here? And I think to your point, you know that you made earlier even this idea of what we can't prove that there's an economic effect, So who cares what's happening to these women? A? Yes, you can prove it, and be you should care. And I would like to see us reach a moment when what matters to us matters to the people in power. We see it on social media, we see hashtags, as you mentioned, me to nineteen million posts why I left, Why I stayed. These these phrases behind a pound sign have given voice to countless women that have otherwise been silenced over years, over decades. And I think the the chorus of our voices that technology has allowed is incredible, and I know it's made an impact. But my hope is that we will see that impact go into the law books, go into the bills that pass and and change things in this generation, in this moment, And I wonder, are there certain individuals or organizations people who are doing that work, who are pressing to take the public discourse into the halls of government, into the halls of justice. Who who are you working with? Who are you following? Who? Who should we know about to look to um to support in this moment. You know, that is such a tricky question because there's so many organizations. You know, I'm on the board of the National Women's Law Center, so of course that's someone that I think of automatically, you know, I there are different kinds of organizations equal rights advocates who are based in San Francisco whose work I know, you know, these are the legal growth, But there are also all of these groups like Girls, Girls with Gender Actorly and UH, Black Women's blue Print and UM, these organizations that are I believe every day speaking truth to power, who are out there carrying the message of our value and of our worth and the need for change. I am of the mind that there's so much of a burden on our groups. They are typically undefunded in their overwork. Even in terms of philanthropy, women's groups do not get nearly the kind of support that our issues command. But they're still they It's the old people used to say, making a way out of no way, and and we need to support them. So I think that there are groups that are doing work nationally, but there are also groups that are doing work locally. And one message that I would have is for those of us who can, we shouldn't support them. We need to support them UM with our money and with our support are using whatever platform said. We have to support them with our voices and with our energy and time. So the work is going on out there, but we really need allies among leaders and and every organization. You know, within every work organization, there are there are movements, and you're seeing that now more than ever in corporate organizations. There are employee movements in places like Google and Uber, where the movement are coming from inside of those organizations to change those organizations. And that is encouraging. But again, the pressure on the leaders of those organizations have to come not just from their employees. They have to come from our government too, and our courts. You mentioned the court systems. You know, we still have judicial decisions made by judges that tolerate basically a certain level of abuse women in the workplace. And so there's no one answer, there's no one simple fix, but there are solutions and there is movement. And I call the book Believing because I do believe that change is possible, and I think I'm absolutely certain that we have more tools today than we have ever had before, and that we need to utilize m HM. So for the people who look up to you as a leader and who who might ask what should I do, where should I start? Who should I support? Is there advice you have for them? I tell them, I don't you know, it's funny, you said, I endorsed Joe Biden. I told people that I was voting for Joe Biden. I don't even know what a political endorsement is because I don't do them. But I think we need to put pressure on all of our leaders any location that we have, whether it is an organization that we belong to, because those, you know, these membership organizations are often riddled with the same kind of problems. Whether it's a museum that we we frequent, whether it it's a a school that we graduated from. UM, I think we need to use our power wherever we have it to address these issues. And so UM, I can't say that there's one person who we need to to press other than the president it but I do think that we need to understand. If we start to really inform ourselves about the significance of the moment that we face, I think we will see the urgency and that then we will find where we can use our voice as best in order to make change. Yes, And I think you know, it's it's a great point you make. This is a it is a national issue for us, it is a global issue for women around the world. We have to press the president, no matter who he is or who she is eventually God willing sooner than later. And each of us, no matter where we find ourselves in the country, should press our local officials, call our senators, call our congress people, reach out to the mayor, our state governors. You know, really let it. Let every single person who represents us know that we want all of our issues to be framed through this one because, as you said, it affects everything, every aspect of our lives, our work, our families, our kids, our health, all of it. And I told you the story earlier about this friend of mine who um who interceded when the boys were chasing the girl. And one of the things that they do is to talk to their children's teachers and to talk about gender equality and how it gets experience in classroom. And you know, I know people and they have included who buy books for classrooms that show gender equity, so that the children and the teacher, the teachers are exposed to different ways of understanding our roles in society. I think all of those things are on the table, and I think we can do both that it was kind of direct engagement as well as advocate for systemic change. I've got to both local, local, to national. Yeah, we've covered a lot. Indeed, I have one last question for you. That is my favorite thing to ask everyone who comes on the show, because we are very much about, you know, being works in progress here, and I'm curious what for you, you know, at this incredible moment in your life, what feels like a work in progress to you? Well, you know, I talk the book is a thirty year journey, but it's not the end of the journey. It's a thirty year journey to end gender violence. But we are not there yet. We are I'm not even saying we're even halfway there yet. It is a work in pro progress. This fight too, to make sure that people are safe and and secure and can really enjoy the full benefits of all of their talents and skills. That really, you know, the work that I'm doing is a work in progress. I hope that I will have many more years to invest in it. But one of the things that I'm absolutely certain of is that even if I don't, there is a new generation of warriors, I'll say, who will take up the mantle and and move us to where we need to go. It's a relay. You've read that, Yeah, you know, I do tell that story about I used to think that getting to equality and equity in the world is going to be a sprint, and then I thought, you know, after a few years of back setbacks, I thought maybe it's more of a marathon. And now I know it's a relay. It is a like and I'm gonna hand the baton to to someone else, but I'm not quite ready to hand off yet. Well, we we love you carrying it. And I think that anyone who's lucky enough to you know, work with you, or or even in parallel to you, understand the energy of of what moves between us. And yeah, we have a long way to go, but you've set an incredible road for us, and you've pointed us in the right direction. So thank you, and thank you for having me. This is a wonderful conversation. This has been such a joy.

Work in Progress with Sophia Bush

Work in Progress with Sophia Bush features frank, funny, personal, professional, and sometimes even  
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 251 clip(s)