Thinking Out Loud: On the Personal, the Political, the Public and the Private

by Anna Quindlen

  One of the most difficult things about bringing sexual harassment charges is that it is usually one woman against the corporate power structure, against not only the boss who says she’s imagining things but also a bulwark of male authority that surrounds him. Davids against the Goliaths. Anita Hill, poised and dignified, spoke up Monday and found herself aligned against the most powerful men in America, including the president. Who among us would have had the guts to pick up her slingshot?

  Listen to us. If the Senate had trivialized the allegations of this woman by moving ahead without painstaking investigation, it would have sent a message: that no matter what we accomplish, we are still seen as oversensitive schoolgirls or duplicitous scorned women. Obviously it would have been better if Professor Hill had stepped forward earlier, content to be reviled and be suspect in the public eye.

  But I understand what she feared: that what has happened would happen. That the focus would be not on what Clarence Thomas did to Anita Hill, but on what Anita Hill did to Clarence Thomas, and who leaked it to the press, and why it’s emerging now, and all the peripheral matters that make the central concern, the right to work unmolested, seem diminished and unimportant. The Senate has the opportunity, in the days to come, to prove that this is not a government by men for men. Listen to us. Listen to her. Then decide.

  AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY

  October 12, 1991

  “He said that if I ever told anyone of his behavior it would ruin his career.”

  —ANITA HILL

  And he was right.

  The members of the Senate Judiciary Committee sat in silence yesterday as their chairman led an obviously intelligent and thoughtful female professor of law through the first discussion of genitalia in the history of the Supreme Court confirmation process. The event was by turns seamy, surreal, and stunning, and was carried on all major networks in its entirety. It was the first time I have ever switched off the TV during a Senate hearing because my children had entered the room.

  It was all there under the lights, as she told it, a case study of sexual harassment: the repeated requests for dates, the dirty comments, the fear of reprisals or firing, the repression. “Thomas told me graphically of his own sexual prowess,” said Anita Hill. I knew what she had felt, what she was afraid she would feel if she testified, because I could feel it too. I felt soiled by the time they broke for lunch.

  With her elderly parents, both farmers, sitting behind her, Professor Hill talked of working for Judge Thomas a decade ago, and of how he asked her out repeatedly and repeatedly discussed hard-core pornography. “His conversations were very vivid,” she said. She recounted an incident in which her then boss discussed porno featuring a man with a large penis. Senator Biden asked gingerly if she could remember the name of the fictional character.

  “Long Dong Silver,” Professor Hill said, and at that moment the career of Clarence Thomas turned to ashes.

  An American tragedy was on television yesterday. There was plenty of blame to be spread around. The Judiciary Committee has borne a great resemblance to the little car at the circus filled with clowns. You could not help wondering whether, if they had not acted differently, we might have all been spared some part of this—the people of this country, and Anita Hill, and Clarence Thomas, too.

  The president is also to blame. A politician whose sole principle is pragmatism, he told the American people that he had chosen the most qualified man for the job, which was not true. He picked a man whose judicial experience was so meager, whose confirmation-hearing testimony was so devoid of substance, that he could be confirmed only on his character: Clarence Thomas, self-made man.

  But Anita Hill spoke of the Clarence Thomas who made her life ugly, dirty, disgusting, who warned her in parting that she had the power to ruin his career. The committee members pressed her to be more graphic, but she went so far, and then no further. What a great relief that was, those moments when she compressed her lips and called a halt.

  I suppose I should take note of the positive effect of this on the national consciousness. We have learned so much about sexual harassment in so short a time that Peter Jennings felt compelled to confide on the air that the men in his office had gotten an education in the last few days.

  But yesterday was no time to stand up and cheer. Two human beings, both well spoken and handsome, both Horatio Alger stories, were forced to put their dignity and veracity on the line. Clarence Thomas made a powerful speech in which he called the confirmation process “Kafkaesque” and added, “No job is worth what I’ve been through.” A half dozen times during his remarks he sounded as though he was going to remove his name from consideration.

  The biggest mistake he made was in not doing so.

  The good thing about writing an opinion column is that you can have an opinion, and my opinion is that Anita Hill is a credible witness and that Clarence Thomas is unfit to sit on the Supreme Court. I do not believe he is good enough. The Senate should have rejected him for that reason alone.

  If they reject him now, history will record that he was rejected because he insisted on talking to his assistant about group and oral sex, large penises and large breasts. And it will record that he took our self-portrait with him. Anita Hill told us yesterday that sometimes women go to work in fear that they will have to listen to filth as part of their duties, that they put up with it because they need the pay or the recommendation, that their bosses may be among the most powerful and respected men in the country. She spoke calmly. She testified persuasively. It was a horrible thing to watch.

  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. The lesson we learned, watching the perfect victim, is that all of us imperfect types, with lies in our past or spotty job histories, without education or the gift of oratory, should just grin and bear it, and try to stay out of the supply closet. “This sexual harassment crap,” Senator Alan Simpson called it, evidencing his interest in women’s issues.

  What I learned from Professor Hill was different. When she returned to Oklahoma, where she may well teach all the rest of her days, unmolested by offers of high appointment because of her status as a historical novelty act, she had a kind of radiance. It seemed to me the tranquillity of a person who has done the right thing and who believes that is more important than public perception.

  There is only one explanation for her story that seems sensible and logical to me, that does not require conspiracy theories or tortured amateur psychoanalyzing or a member of the United States Senate making himself look foolish by reading aloud from The Exorcist. There is only one explanation that seems based not in the plot of some improbable thriller but in the experiences of real life, which the members of the Senate seem to know powerfully little about. That explanation is that she was telling the truth and he was not. Simple as that. She got trashed and he got confirmed. Simple as that.

  THE TROUBLE WITH TEDDY

  October 19, 1991

  The trouble with Teddy is that he’s like the little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead. When he’s good, he’s better than anyone else, but when he’s bad—oh, boy!

  When he finally opened his mouth during the Judiciary Committee hearings on Anita Hill’s charges against Clarence Thomas he tied it all up with a ribbon. He said with considerable ire that he hoped we would not be hearing any more about perjury or racism, that instead of trying to divert attention the committee should concentrate on sexual harassment. For just a moment he was what he was always meant to be: Edward M. Kennedy, the liberal conscience of the Senate. And then he lapsed back into a self-imposed silence, into the cat’s cradle woven of the facts of Teddy’s private life.

  It was during the 1988 election that the great debate erupted over the impact of personal behavior on political fitness. Gary Hart. Donna Rice. Monkey Business. There were many who proclaimed that the private life of a public man is not the point and that the public had no need to know about behavior after hours.

  I’ve never believed that. It is difficult for me to imagine the same dedication to women’s rights on the part of the kind of man who lives in partnership with someone he likes and respects, and the kind of man who considers breast-augmentation surgery self-improvement. That was my argument in ’88, that I had problems with the kind of guy who thundered against sex discrimination but couldn’t keep his hands off women. And it continued to be my argument, as issues affecting the way we live moved to the forefront of national affairs.

  Now I need not make the argument; all the world is making it. And one of the reasons they are making it is the trouble with Teddy, which has neutralized one of the ablest members of the Senate at the moment he was needed most.

  Everyone knew why the senior senator from Massachusetts turned into an inanimate object when the hearings turned to the subject of sexual harassment. It was because of the split between his public and private selves, because of accounts of his drinking and his exploits with women, because of his nephew in Palm Beach and his car in Chappaquiddick.

  Even one of his close friends stooped to conquer. Criticizing a remark of Mr. Kennedy’s, Orrin Hatch said, “Anybody who believes that, I know a bridge up in Massachusetts that I’ll be happy to sell to them.” Later Senator Hatch apologized, saying he meant a bridge in Brooklyn.

  And if you believe that, there is a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell.

  This is not a plea for perfect men in public life, although if there are any hanging around we could use them. Nor is it an affirmation of those women who believe that because the Democrats let us down, we should cut them loose. I understand the disenchantment, but if I have a choice between zapping any Democrat on the Judiciary Committee or, say, Alan Simpson, whose idea of investigation is to say he has lots of dirt on the witness and then to refuse to make it public—well, that’s not a tough call.

  But I do believe it is time for our elected officials to act like men and not overgrown fraternity boys who use political positions as the ultimate pickup line. And it’s time for us to be realistic about the inevitable nexus between the personal and the political, about the essential contradiction between voting on issues that empower women and seeing them as inflatable dolls in private.

  Wanda Baucus, an anthropologist married to the Democratic senator from Montana, revealed in The Washington Post yesterday that she has been sexually harassed by—surprise!—two members of the United States Senate: one Republican before she was married, one Democrat after. Asking such men to decide a question of sexual harassment is not exactly like having gun control decided by someone who’s been known to enter a convenience store and spray the deli counter with bullets. But it’s close.

  Teddy Kennedy has, over the years, been the exception. Last week he proved the rule. Sex discrimination, family leave—we feminists have always felt he was on our side. He let us down because he had to; he was muzzled by the facts of his life. And he proved once and for all that the private life of a politician casts an indelible shadow over public affairs, sometimes to the detriment of the public.

  THE INVASION VACATION

  August 19, 1990

  We didn’t want to take this vacation. It was the president’s idea. I figured we should just call August on account of invasion, hunker down, and wait for the price of gasoline to reach the foie-gras mark. The president would have none of this. “The American people want to see life go on,” he said.

  This was not as easy as it sounded. As a patriotic gesture, we bought charcoal briquets and went to the middle of nowhere. The middle of nowhere was in the middle of the Middle East mania. News followed us to the outdoor art show and the Farmer’s Market.

  The Village Grocery became Democracy Central. First thing in the morning the bread-delivery man, the milk-delivery man, and the man who runs the place would be clustered around the cash register, trashing Saddam Hussein and tracking troop deployments. “I think the president is right on the money,” they said. This is the kind of place where the president is usually right on the money.

  The gas station was raucous with gas-line lore, much of it macho and apocryphal. Testosterone filled the air. War will do that. You know the drill: “Remember in ’79 when you punched out that guy who tried to cut in line to put air in his tires, Phil?” someone says. “Hell,” says Phil, “I never punched him out. I ran over his foot. And it was ’73.”

  At the mall, teenagers in heavy-metal T-shirts sullenly absorbed current events. “Saddam Hussein, man,” they would say, if they could talk. “He’s toast.”

  America has rallied round, and it is something to see. There’s a local angle, no matter what the locality—American kids in khaki, folks like us held hostage to empty gas tanks. The story is writ large: friends, foes, a big bad guy with the sinister mustache of a James Bond villain. The Iraqis have replaced the Soviets in the “evil empire” role, much missed since we began playing “I’m O.K., you’re O.K.” with the Russians. Polls show that Americans are more possessed by this story than by any in years.

  People say it’s hard to get away from it all because of the magic of cable television, fax machines, computer modems. But this time around it’s democracy that’s doing us in. Now that election campaigns bear more of a resemblance to MTV
than to statesmanship, we’ve got two ways to reaffirm what this county stands for. One is the jury room, with its miraculous ability to turn twelve bumbling United States citizens into paragons of diplomacy, objectivity, and thoughtfulness.

  The other is crisis management. Iraq invades Kuwait and—bingo!—all Americans become experts on the Middle East, dependence on foreign oil, and chemical warfare. It’s one of the enduring strengths of the country that the average guy at the corner store believes he has some small influence, and some great responsibility.

  “That Iraq fella is going to get what’s coming to him,” said the man waiting in the barbershop to get his short hair cut shorter. “That’s my prediction.”

  There’s something for everyone here. The word “Vietnam,” which keeps cropping up in discussions about troop strength and the American involvement, speaks to the collective memory of one generation of Americans. The word “Hitler,” which has been used profligately in discussions of the Iraqi leader, speaks to another. (The public-opinion mavens who’ve been asking people how Hussein compares with Hitler should be prosecuted for carrying a loaded question.) The angle for kids: Saddam Hussein is Bart Simpson cubed. Bad attitude, dude.

  Life goes on, but not on its usual track. Even the president couldn’t keep up the illusion of normalcy. He vacates well, but he has to watch appearances. People still remember that he went hunting at the tail end of the Panama invasion.

  He told the rest of us to go on with our lives, and then instead of staying put in Kennebunkport, with the phone in his golf cart and his cigarette boat, he took a short trip back to Washington. It was a Daddy vacation. A couple of days in a business suit, a couple of days in a vest with lots of little pockets and hooks and feathers all over it. Takes me back.