Last month marked the 26th Anniversary of Anita Hill’s testimony against Clarence Thomas. As a college student at Wesleyan in 1991, I was gripped by the gravity of the moment: the confirmation hearing for a Supreme Court Justice nominee, conducted by an all-white male, fourteen-member Senate Judiciary Committee, brought to a tipping point by the accusations of a lone, African American female.
I was awed by Hill’s willingness to step from behind the silencing curtain of victimization, to stand at the center-stage of history, under the intense spotlight of public scrutiny. Hers was a composure and courage millions of women still find impossible to muster. While viewing the hearing, I recalled how four years earlier, as a sixteen-year old, I was told by a restaurant owner that he would only give me a job as a waitress, if I promised to wear miniskirts. At that moment, I promised instead to never have a boss, so that no one could have that type of economically coercive, insulting power over me. I started a company at age 21, and 25 years later I am still my own boss.
So, when I watched the November 7th CNN Town Hall – Tipping Point: Sexual Harassment in America, featuring Anita Hill, I experienced a range of emotions I imagine other women felt while viewing it: self-affirming pride, empathy, sympathy and outrage --- particularly as I learned of the hush-fund practice, financed by taxpayer dollars, used by congressmen and senators to silence women (and men) who have accused them of sexual harassment.
We are now in the midst of the #MeToo awakening, an awareness which left me feeling another emotion while watching that televised town hall-- speculative disappointment. I say speculative because I watched wondering if Anita Hill, as I did, had an anticipation or expectation that the event would be a break-out conversation designed to forward-calibrate the status of women worldwide.
Instead, I saw a foot-dragging, sleepy dialogue that didn’t come close to matching Hill’s courageous confrontation of her harasser, from decades ago. To her credit, CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota moderated the event purposefully, adroitly and substantively. And to their credit, Hill’s co-guests conveyed dismay and outrage about the poor conduct of the men who had harassed and assaulted them. Their narratives were poignant and arresting, as they recounted the tactless, intimidating and aberrant behavior of men they had worked with. But still, they fell short of fully using their voices. They did not name names.
Former Congresswoman Mary Bono said, “The reason that I don't [name him] is because he stopped. And I wouldn't say that if he didn't, but he did. And so when somebody changes their way, they should be thanked.” Bono protected the male colleague who had demeaned her with concealment, knowing only that he stopped his demeaning conduct with her. But what of the possibility that he continued demeaning other women?
Her exonerating grant of gratitude, recommending that men who stop their poor conduct be thanked, struck me more as Stockholm Syndrome appeasement than as a redemptive reward for character metamorphosis. If Bono’s colleague had slapped her across the face, then stopped when she requested he do so, would she also keep him unnamed? Would she thank him? That her comments didn’t trigger a jaw-dropping response, from any of the women onscreen during the broadcast, speaks to how pervasive a reality for countless women is the conduct of harassment --- and appeasement.
Similarly protecting of a male colleague behaving with impropriety, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand stated, “I was grabbed by the waist, just with one hand, gently. And the gentleman said: Don't lose too much weight. I like my girls chubby.” I’m aware of the customary protocol of civility amongst congressional and senatorial colleagues, to refer to each other as “gentleman” and “gentlewoman”. But when a man disqualifies himself from such polite, well-mannered and honorable distinction, he should not be referenced as such. The waist-grabbing vulture of the voluptuous Gillibrand gave account to, also continues to circle the skies of inappropriate conduct, protected by the license of anonymity, free to lower his character and grip to pigeon other women, who must move around him in watchful discomfort.
The unwillingness of women to name their offenders is a conduct conditioned by a code of silence millions of women consent to and uphold, for many women share victim status inflicted upon them by the same perpetrator. This goes beyond the silencing culture of coercion men have created through punitive retaliations, rigged arbitrations, gag-order settlements and career-ending collusion. I am talking about the self-muting done by so many women who have suffered and endured the indignities of men, because they have given a greater priority to the reputation of men (good name, career impact, financial viability) than to the self-proprietorship of their own being.
I state this with full knowledge of and appreciation for the economic bullying, emotional duress, psychological manipulation, physical fear, subjugating threats and real danger many women live with because of sexual harassment. But I also wish to address this muting with the full awareness and intent of a personal audit that many, many more women face harassment without the response-negating consequences I just cited. We are a majority who can react and respond without concerns for financial retaliation, job security and physical reprisal. We are the magnifying multitude who can help the helpless amongst us to speak out against the transgressions and violations committed against them. We must voice the voiceless.
I can’t think of a circumstance or situation when a code of silence is invoked and adhered to, for any reason other than to conceal misconduct and criminality. That concealment is generally orchestrated by the individuals guilty of misconduct and criminality, to protect themselves from exposure and prosecution. This is not the case with the accessory conduct I’m drawing attention to. When women invoke a code of silence, it is done to excuse the inexcusable excuses of the very men who have demonstrated misconduct and criminality towards us.
Our code of silence has a dual component. Both parts insure that we will continue to experience a disastrous dual consequence:
- The perpetuation of a self-negating behavior we instruct to our daughters, granddaughters, nieces, cousins, students and co-workers. This lives on as an insidious indoctrination that makes us reluctant to defend ourselves. It also leaves us feeling overly concerned about appearing to be overly sensitive, to tasteless, tactless comments and assaulting, abusive conduct.
- It creates a 24/7 mental state of apprehension and fear we accept as our “normal”. This is an exhausting, derailing preoccupation that continues to sidetrack our greatest abilities, aspirations and achievements.
Part one is our refusal to personally, directly and immediately address inappropriate behavior, or to report it to management or law enforcement. To overcome it, we must summon the courage to do so. But to do so, we must first understand the meaning of “courage” --- having the ability to act when confronted with fear. We must also understand that the only way to get that courage we so sorely need is to do the very thing we’re afraid of doing --- holding men accountable.
One way to enable and empower yourself to act against inappropriate and egregious conduct is to become a flex practitioner. This means having an understanding of that word, as an application of conduct. Simply put, to “flex” means to define your value at all times, and defend it at a moment's notice. To become a practitioner means you will instruct your daily conduct to live this definition as your reality. It also means that you will commit yourself to sharing this definition and pledge of conduct, with as many women as you can, particularly when mentoring opportunities present themselves. We must create a “flex generation”.
Part two is our unwillingness to identify the perpetrators of sexual harassment, and to call them out --- to name them. This gives men the culprit shield that allows them to continue their harassment with impunity. The unwillingness of women to name names, and shine a protective light on predatory darkness, is not a matter of complicity or codependency. It is a matter of default participation in the creation of more victims. For every man we provide anonymity to, there exist a multiple factor of women he goes on to damage and demean.
Our cooperative silence, versus the coercive silence we must aid to overcome, is not unlike the code of silence of that infects police departments. Over the last year I have been in conversation with the Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department. Superintendent Eddie Johnson knows he must destroy the officers’ code of silence, which keeps hush about departmental misconduct, if he is going to improve the relationship between officers and residents in the neighborhoods they patrol, especially low-income, real-estate distressed, minority communities.
Ironically, many residents of those same communities enact a code of silence that covers for criminals, out of fear of retaliation and distrust of the police. In both cases, the derelict population of individuals involved in wrongdoing is dwarfed by those who are not. The ratio of good cops to bad cops skews tremendously towards the good. Likewise, the communities skew towards law-abiding residents. Yet the felonious power that derelict population wields, and the detriment it exacts continues to affect the majority population who is silent to expose it.
Similarly, the majority of men conduct themselves with a non-threatening, non-harassing, non-insulting comportment. But when that majority of men remain silent about countering and calling out those men who behave to the contrary, the “department” of all men gets stigmatized. Likewise, when the majority of women remain silent about countering and calling out men who harass them, the “neighborhood” of all women lives under siege. And when we remain silent, we facilitate the victimization of other women, who must then live with the degrading and often times traumatizing impact for the remainder of their lives.
More, if not all women must become active participants, in advancing the legacy of Anita Hill’s self-defining courage. We are now witnessing and bearing testament, to the efficacy and effectiveness of ending our code of silence. We need to further that effort by taking the next and needed steps to make #MeToo, #MeNoMore. Names like “Bill Cosby”, “Harvey Weinstein”, “Casey Affleck”, “Bill O'Reilly”, “Roger Ailes”, “Roy Price”, “Chris Savino”, “Hamilton Fish”, “Leon Wieseltier”, “Michael Oreskes”, “John Besh”, “Louis C.K.” “Roy Moore” and “Donald Trump” are all tumbling down the avalanche of accountability --- because they got named.
The magnifying multitude of women I characterized earlier can do this. We are of position, capability, intelligence, self-preservation and coalition to do so. We only need the convincing will that will produce convincing change.
Our will needs to embrace the self-accountability, for flexing the reality we still only dream of, and it must constantly, conscientiously and collectively commit to standing with, for and behind each other against harassment, especially for those of us truly subjugated by circumstance. This support even includes reclaiming our physical space, something as powerful and enforceful as naming names.
Last weekend my friend Dana, a powerful executive and mother of four sons, was reading her iPad at a bar, inside a restaurant. Three drunk men, sitting very close to her, were talking loudly and directing sexually loaded comments at her. She told them to stop talking to her. They responded defensively, asking her why she was getting so angry, when they were simply talking to an attractive woman sitting alone at a bar. She flexed, “I don’t care if I am dancing naked on the bar, when I say stop it means stop.” She remained at the bar, and the men didn’t talk with her again, though the turned to catcalling a woman who walked into the bar.
Dana told me that it was only the next day that she realized she stopped short of doing everything to check the conduct of those men. She failed to ask the manager of the bar to insist that the harassers leave. Instead, she reduced her options to staying and being uncomfortable and risk further insult and imposition, or leave. When women are customers, we have a self-authority to make these requests. The third option, the one she was a day late on considering, is the option she realizes should have been her first-choice decision.
A final consideration. A three-stage pattern of conduct has emerged from the deluge of disgusting accounts of high-profile men confronting allegations of sexual harassment. First, they emphatically deny the allegations. Second, they effusively disparage the accusers. Third, they egotistically decry the scope of media coverage. Their absence of remorse and contrition should completely revoke our consideration of redemption of their status and restitution of their reputations, and that revocation should last as long as the scarring impact of the harassment, assault and rape that festers as a living wound in the memory of their victims --- permanently.
Neither should we afford any forgiving sentiments to the self-serving, public-evading, accuser-dodging, press-release apologies they belatedly issue. When Louis C.K. offered his apology, he referenced being in a position of power because the women subjected to his perversions “admired him”. What C.K. completely fails to comprehend is that his power doesn’t come from their admiration. It comes from something much more base, and far more overwhelming --- the privilege of being male. This privilege is not an insidious assumption, covertly employed through all institutions, sectors and branches of society, to mandate and maintain an advantage for a majority population. It is a privilege enforced by brute. The fear that girls grow up, and that women live with, is rooted in one simple truth: boys and men have more muscle mass than girls and women, and have a proven history of using it to inflict harm on girls and women. Period. Full stop.
I am considering one concession to Louis C.K.. During his apology, he mentioned his accusers and other people, entities and productions he hurt by his behavior. In so doing, he apologized to his manager, David Becky, “who only tried to mediate a situation that I caused.” He apologized to the man who was complicit in hiding his deviant displays. No doubt unintentionally, C.K. indicted Becky in the court of public opinion. He named a name.
I hope any future town hall telecast will do the same.