Sexual harassment in the workplace is an issue of power: As long as working women are silenced, alienated, shamed and blamed as victims of sexual harassment, we cannot claim that we are a society that has achieved gender equality. That is why Anita Hill’s courageous account of her harassment by then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas before a congressional hearing in October, 1991, remains so profound a moment in the history of women speaking truth to power.
Twenty years after Anita Hill boldly brought workplace sexual harassment to the American public consciousness, The Nation celebrates the progress we have made in the two decades since and reflects on the challenges we still face. In this video produced by Francis Reynolds and Emily Douglas, The Nation invites playwright Eve Ensler, the Domestic Workers Alliance’s Ai-Jen Poo, former director of 9 to 5 Ellen Bravo, Hollaback!’s Emily May, The Nation‘s Katha Pollitt and the African American Policy Forum’s Kimberlé Crenshaw to talk about the significance of Anita Hill’s legacy and how the urgent need to address issues such as sexual harassment against domestic workers and women of color remains to this day.
These interviews were filmed at the conference “Sex, Power and Speaking Truth: Anita Hill 20 Years Later” in New York City.
—JIn Zhao