Speaking Truth to Power - Anita Hill [90]
Specter began by assuring me that he was simply trying “to find out what happened.” But I was well aware of Specter’s public statement that he had already concluded that he believed Thomas’ denials. I thanked him when he asserted that he did not view the hearing “as an adversarial proceeding,” still hoping that he would move beyond his initial reaction to the claim and see that his “duties [ran] … to the constitutional government and the Constitution.” As an attorney he might have placed the significance of a Supreme Court appointment over the partisanship that had prevailed in the debate over whether or not to hold the hearing. Nevertheless, in short order, any hope that Senator Specter would transcend the political was dashed. He began his questioning with an unmistakably prosecutorial tone. He used a familiar cross-examination tactic—a tactic common in sexual harassment cases. He ridiculed my reaction to Thomas’ behavior, suggesting that I was being oversensitive, even to the point of misrepresenting my testimony.
“Professor Hill, I can understand that it is uncomfortable, and I don’t want to add to that.” But his emulation of concern immediately turned to condescension. “You testified this morning, in response to Senator Biden, that the most embarrassing question involved—this is not too bad—women’s large breasts. That is a word we use all the time. That was the most embarrassing aspect of what Judge Thomas had said to you.”
“No. The most embarrassing aspect was his description of the acts of these individuals, these women, the acts that those particular people would engage in. It wasn’t just the breasts; it was the continuation of his story about what happened in those films with the people with this characteristic, physical characteristic,” I responded, trying to control my outrage. Senator Specter had taken this mortifying episode of my life in which my supervisor had described to me acts of bestiality and had deliberately reduced its offending elements to the use of the term “breasts,” which, witheringly, he had dismissed as “not too bad.” Despite the graphic details I had already described, Senator Specter ignored the numerous sexual references far more contemptible than anything merely anatomical and chose to focus on the innocuous-sounding word “breast,” suggesting that I was overreacting. Of course, any woman who has ever been made to feel uncomfortable about the size of her breasts would know that even this term could be used to embarrass or demean.
By ignoring the far more contemptible and numerous explicit sexual references, the senator focused attention away from Thomas and his behavior and attempted to render a caricature of me and my standard of the offensiveness. A typical reaction to complaints of harassment, Senator Specter’s scoffing portrayed me as the silly prude who can’t handle normal adult conversation. But even if the senator had correctly reported my testimony, his portrayal of my experience as “not too bad” would nevertheless be inaccurate. Reference to breasts alone could certainly be demeaning. And a supervisor’s constant references to women’s breasts or breast size could be more damaging yet. Senator Specter’s suggestion that a reference to a woman’s breast was not a “bad” thing ignored the fact that the workplace is rarely a place where women go to discuss their own anatomy or the anatomy of other women, particularly when the discussion is of a sexual nature.
Though Senator Specter’s announced purpose was “to find out what happened,” his questions differed in tone and in substance from those of his Democratic colleagues. Almost immediately, Senator Specter seemed to be searching for inconsistencies between my statement and my testimony. I had found Senator Biden’s questions difficult and embarrassing enough. And later in the day both Senators Howell Heflin and Patrick Leahy would ask similarly invasive questions about the substance of the claim and my motivation in my coming forward. But Specter’s questions often required me to reconcile the details of my statement