Thinking Out Loud: On The Personal, The Political, The Public And The Private (v5.0) by Anna Quindlen

Author:Anna Quindlen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Usenet
ISBN: 9780307763556
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 1993-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

THE PERFECT VICTIM

October 16, 1991

She seemed the perfect victim. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that she was the perfect person to teach us that there are no perfect victims, that no matter how impressive your person, how detailed your story, how unblemished your past, if you stand up and say, “He did this to me,” someone will find a way to discredit you.

And so it was with Anita Hill. Intelligent, composed, unflappable, religious, and attractive, she testified to her sexual harassment by Clarence Thomas and even to her own inadequacies, agreeing that it had taken her too long to come forward, that it was hard to understand why she had kept in touch. And as soon as she left the room, she was portrayed as nut case, romantic loser, woman scorned, perjurer.

Clarence Thomas thundered about the sexual stereotypes of black men, and the Senate gasped obligingly. Little attention was paid to the stereotypes leveled at Professor Hill. Aloof. Hard. Tough. Arrogant. This is familiar shorthand to any successful woman. She wanted to date him. She wasn’t promoted. She’s being used by his enemies. This is familiar shorthand to anyone who has ever tried to take on the men in power.

African-American women are sometimes asked to choose sides, to choose whether to align themselves with their sisters or with their brothers. To choose whether to stand against the indignities done them as women, sometimes by men of their own race, or to remember that black men take enough of a beating from the white world and to hold their peace. The race card versus the gender card. Clarence Thomas milked the schism.

With his cynical invocation of lynching, he played in a masterly way on the fact that the liberal guilt about racism remains greater than guilt about the routine mistreatment of women. We saw more of Judge Thomas’s character last weekend than we ever did during his confirmation hearings. What we learned is that he is rigid, anxious to portray himself as perfect, a man who will not even allow that two men watching a football game might talk differently than they would if there were women in the room.

The members of the Senate took to the floor yesterday and congratulated themselves on educating the American people about sexual harassment. Well, here is what they taught me:

That Senator Orrin Hatch needs to spend more time in the taverns of America if he thinks that only psychopaths talk dirty.

That the party of the Willie Horton commercials is alive and well and continuing to indulge in the deft smear for the simple reason that it works.

That the Democrats behaved in these hearings the way they have in presidential elections, hamstrung by their own dirty linen, ineffectual in their pallid punches, weak advocates for the disfranchised.

I learned that if I ever claim sexual harassment, I will be confronted with every bozo I once dated, every woman I once impressed as snotty and superior, and together they will provide a convenient excuse to disbelieve me.

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