Speaking Truth to Power - Anita Hill [98]
Doggett’s theory proposed that I had fantasized about a relationship with him. And when he heard about my charge against Judge Thomas, he deduced that it must have been born of the trouble he felt I’d had establishing relationships with men. Finally, Doggett concluded that what he had diagnosed as my mental instability caused me to send an affidavit to the Senate staff working on the confirmation hearing. Doggett’s reasoning was flawed at every step. During his testimony he recited many details of his résumé, but nowhere was there a reference to expertise in conducting psychological evaluations. Moreover, he showed himself to lack any objectivity in evaluating the level of his own attractiveness, asserting that women generally found him “irresistible,” a “fact” confirmed by his wife, who sat behind him at the hearing.
Though Senators Danforth and Specter were quick to use the Doggett statement and testimony as evidence that I suffered from erotomania, neither of them suggested that Doggett himself might be suffering from erotomonomania. One reporter described the disease as “a male delusion that attractive young women are harboring fantasies about them.” Even without probing from the panel, applying the Republican standard of psychological evaluation, John Doggett showed himself to be a candidate for a diagnosis for this disorder. Had the senators been interested in a scientific pursuit, John Doggett would no doubt have made a good subject for their inquiry. Instead, Senator Specter took the offensive and went to the press to bolster Doggett’s pitiful account and defend the committee’s admission of it by describing it as “powerful” and “impressive.”
In contradiction to the impression Doggett believes he left with me, my recollection is hazy at best. Nevertheless, the John Doggett whom I recall from my time in Washington was a man who often inflicted his attention on women even where it was not reciprocated. Following his testimony, several women callers to the Senate committee confirmed my recollection and challenged the notion that he was “irresistible.” Many of the callers had apparently found Doggett and his advances repulsive. And one of the callers even sent in a sworn statement of an encounter in the workplace with Doggett during which he tried to kiss her against her will. Nevertheless, the evidentiary rules as enforced by Senator Biden allowed admission of John Doggett’s testimony and excluded that of the women who called with a contradictory point of view. The idea of the admission of testimony like Doggett’s in a proceeding as important as this is hard to believe. The reality of experiencing it, however, was completely appalling.
Nearly nine hours after Senator Biden swore me in, I concluded my testimony. The Republican senators had raised questions about the veracity of my statements, my professional competency, and my sanity. At 7:40 P.M. I was exhausted, my head ached, and the pain in my side from the tumors was excruciating after sitting in one position for hours. Underneath my suit, my body was drenched with perspiration from both the tension and the pain. Emotionally, I was numb but relieved.
As the procession filed out of the caucus room and down the hall to our “headquarters,” I knew that I would need to return to testify, but I was glad that at least the first day was over. Someone found me a Tylenol, which I took in the bathroom off the conference room where my team and family had temporarily camped. It was one of the few moments I had had alone. I looked at the face in the mirror and marveled that it could still be mine. So much of what