Authors: Marianne Schnall
MS
: How do you see that? How do you view the role of culture in terms of this conversation?
AH
: Let’s say, for example, Hillary Clinton does ultimately run for president in this next election cycle. Even though she’s been secretary of state, a world leader, you’re going to have people questioning whether or not she has the [right] kind of toughness. They won’t question her analyzing skills
so much as they will her toughness, and her toughness is going to be defined by this male approach, muscular approach, to what it means to be tough. If you think back to the primary election where Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were sort of neck and neck, at some point they were trading places, I guess. He was always ahead of her, but in terms of electoral-college votes . . . the moment we saw tears in her eyes—and not on her face; they were just in her eyes—came with all of the questions about whether or not she was tough, and whether or not she could be president if she was going to have that kind of emotional response. So it’s clear to me that we have these ideas about what it takes to be the leader of the free world that have nothing to do with the qualities that we want to see in a leader, or even some of the qualities that we value in male leaders, like their ability to connect with the emotions that people experience, but they may become demerits for women.
MS
: On the flip side of what you were saying about the pushback she got when she showed emotion, when she was perceived as tough, there were all these reverse comments and sexist novelty items like the “Hillary nutcracker.” It’s like you can’t win either way.
AH
: There’s no way you can possibly be both people that you’re supposed to be, the way they’re defining her, and there’s no way that you could ever satisfy some people, because they just cannot conceptualize what a woman leader should be and could be.
MS
: A lot of times this gets framed as a fairness or equality issue, but why is it important that we have more women there, aside from just basic parity for parity’s sake? What do you think women would bring?
AH
: They’ll broaden the information that goes into decision making. I think people tend to connect with and bring into their own circles people who are
like them, so by bringing in one person, you are more likely to bring additional women voices into the decision-making process, and that’s going to be better for everyone if the perspective is broadened. I think we’ve got so many complex issues that cannot be resolved by looking at them from one perspective. And ultimately, allowing more women in will help make better decisions if, in fact, those women are powerful and in tune with and connected with other women’s voices, and perhaps voices of people who have been left out of the conversation, including people of color.
MS
: By the way, that’s part of what I’m hoping this book is also going to speak to. It’s not just about women specifically but about diversity in general, how we would all benefit. You referenced this last election. Do you see a changing paradigm, both in our elected officials and in the way the face in Washington is starting to look a little bit more like America? Do you think the trend is heading in the right direction?
AH
: I think you’re starting to see it. Twenty women in the Senate is significant, but I do think that the tensions in the other direction, toward a more conservative approach of who belongs in those roles, is real. I don’t think we can discount the fact that there are people who just are not concerned about diversity and that they really are very much traditional and conservative. And not just in a political sense, in terms of the way they vote on particular pieces of legislation, but conservative in terms of the desire to see broader representation in our representative bodies. I think there are some interesting things going on worldwide. I’ve sort of been following this whole move in Europe to make sure that more women are on boards, and I think it’s all of these things that we see that start inching us forward, even though they don’t look like much at the time, but they move us toward something different. Now, I also think that we’ve got a problem, and that is popular culture that reinforces some of the negatives about women’s roles.
MS
: There’s been a lot of talk, because women internalize that so much, that there are also psychological obstacles that women impose on themselves, by not naturally advocating for themselves in the workplace, or these studies that say that women have to be almost begged to run for office. Do you think that that’s also a factor?
AH
: Yes, but I don’t know that women will need to be begged if they know that there’s a system that’s not rigged against them. So it’s like a chicken-and-egg thing. I don’t know that women would need to be begged if they thought that they were going into a process that was fair and that was going to treat them fairly. So what comes first? I’m not sure, but I think you’re right that women are going to have to take risks to get engaged, and I think they can build opportunities for other women. But then you ask yourself—when you say to women, “Oh, you have to,” I guess the new phrase is, “lean in”—how much risk are we willing to ask women to take without providing them with some kind of security that they’re not just doing that for nothing? I’m not sure where the point is where we start saying yes, we want women to lean in, but on the other hand, we also want to assure them that there is a system where it’s going to be worth their effort if they lean in.
MS
: Exactly. It is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. You were also talking about women being willing to take those risks. I actually found myself getting a little emotional when I was watching the
MAKERS
documentary, when it gets to the part where it talks about your role in history. I can’t think of many people who took as much of a high-profile risk as you did. You’re a hero to many people, in terms of the courage that you had, especially back then, to speak out. How did you find your courage and strength to speak out?
AH
: When you talk about people who do things that people perceive as really courageous, most of the time what motivates them is not the risk
that they’re looking at, of what might happen that would be really, really disastrous for them, but what’s the importance of what it is you’re trying to achieve? And I think for me, when I look at those things, I look at some of my role models . . . people like Rosa Parks, and Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher, who, as a twenty year old, sued to integrate the University of Oklahoma College of Law. And in the case of both of those women, I’ve read some of what they cared about and what was important to them, and I think what they were looking at was not the consequences of doing a thing as much as the consequences of not doing it. So for me, when I think about the hearing, what motivated me to do it was bigger than the consequences of doing it. I mean, I knew that I had important information about Clarence Thomas, what kind of judge he was going to be, because I knew about his own behavior that really said that he had no respect for the law and that he believed himself to be above the law. In the situation I’m talking about, it happened to be sexual harassment, which carried with it another kind of meaning, in that what it meant for me was that we’re going to have somebody in a position of ultimate authority, as a member of a group of nine, but still having a role to play in deciding the rights of women and people of color, in cases of discrimination. And knowing that the law was going to be written by and shaped by someone with a disregard for it was what I was looking at. And that was the consequence, and I could have an impact on how that shaped and took place. That was really what motivated me—it just outweighed the consequences.
Now, I didn’t know what all the consequences were [
laughs]
, and maybe that helped, but I think that there’s someplace in your conscience that says,
If I don’t act, then I will have been a part of something that I don’t want to live with
. I would have been moving away from something and turning my back on something. Then, on the other hand, you know that there are going to be negative consequences . . . and, for me, I felt that I had the personal resources to be able to deal with it—I had the family, I
had my friends. I felt that I could weather whatever occurred as a result. And I don’t know that I was all that logical in what I did, but that’s why I did it. And then I tell people, “Then you pray a lot” [
laughs]
. I mean, you really do—you pray and you look to your family and you look to the people who love you and you have faith in God and you have faith in the people around you . . . and then you do what you know is best.
MS
: There are so many lessons in your story, especially as we’re talking about how women running for office, or just stepping out in any way, are sometimes subject to so many different forms of personal attack and scrutiny. Do you remember how you got through that? How did you not let that get to you? What did give you strength during that time?
AH
: Well, so much of the scrutiny was just lies. It was just outright lies, and even on the part of some of the senators, some comments and statements that were made were just not true. So knowing that I knew the truth, that was very helpful, and knowing that the people around me knew the truth, that was also very helpful. I mean, some of the things that they ascribed to me were just so untrue and so unreal that it was disturbing, but it also took away some of the sting, because I knew it wasn’t true and I knew that and I had enough people around me who knew who I was and what I am. So that’s in part how I dealt with it. I wouldn’t ever say that it didn’t get to me, that it didn’t hurt. And I will say I was reluctant, you know, there was stuff about “Oh, she couldn’t give testimony against an important black man,” the whole racial issue. That was not my biggest concern. My biggest concern was that the process was not interested in getting to the truth, and that was the only thing that was risky for me.
MS
: I was looking at
MAKERS
, when they show that amazing footage of all the congresswomen marching to the Senate to demand that you be
heard. Talk about the importance of having women in Congress! Do you remember how you felt about the fact that those women did come to your defense, and how important that was?
AH
: Let’s just put it in this way: seeing that they were willing to, by going over to the Senate, sort of step out of their “place,” step out of what their defined roles as congresswomen were, and approach the Senate, which was clearly outside of protocol—had it not been for those women, there very likely would not have been a hearing. But if you look at the women who did go over —Patsy Mink, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Patricia Schroeder—I mean, these were all pioneers in women’s, gender, and racial issues. If you think about Patsy Mink with Title IX and Patricia Schroeder with the Violence Against Women Act and Eleanor Holmes Norton from the time she was in New York at the New York Human Rights Commission—all of these women were pioneers, and they just knew, certainly before I did, why the testimony was of significance. I mean, I thought it was significant for the issue that I am telling you about, the role that Clarence Thomas would go on to play on the court. I had no idea, really, that it was going to lead to a conversation about gender equality, more generally gender representation, and even specifically sexual harassment.
MS
: That was really remarkable. And in fact, Eleanor Holmes Norton always says that your case sparked the Year of the Woman.
AH
: Yes, it did. I mean, if you go back and you look at why some of these women who went into Congress ran—as a matter of fact, Barbara Boxer was in that group of women who went over to the Senate, and in the next few months she was elected to the Senate [
laughs]
. Again, it’s all very interesting, but it also shows you—this is another point that I try to make—that if you think about what happened after the hearing, the conventional
wisdom was that women would never come forward again after witnessing what the Judiciary Committee did with my testimony. It also shows you that women are incredibly brave, and once they understand that they have rights and are in the position to pursue them, they will. Because even though the conventional wisdom was that women would not come forward, women in fact doubled the rate of filing sexual harassment claims in the year following the hearing. So to me there are so many lessons from that episode in history that go from the political lessons to the lessons that have to do with women’s rights and rights enforcement, and even into our relationships, our interpersonal relationships. The fact that women could now tell their families and friends about their experiences, it was a significant breakthrough for us, socially and culturally.
MS
: Do you think since that time the situation has improved, specifically in terms of sexual harassment cases, in the workplace climate for women and as far as women’s awareness of what their rights are is concerned, and also in terms of that courage to speak out?
AH
: I think we’ve made some progress, and I hear from women from time to time and get thousands of letters from women who say, “I was having problems in the workplace, and after your hearing, things changed.” Or that just the culture in the workplace has changed. Now, I am not naive enough to believe that there is no sexual harassment. It continues to exist. It continues to be a problem, and women continue to feel threatened in ways that keep us from coming forward. So, yes, we changed, but we have not resolved the issue.
MS
: Do you think—and we talk about this whole need for more women in Washington—if more women had been there in the decision-making capacities, Clarence Thomas would have been confirmed?