Since her days testifying for Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearings, Anita Hill has become a fierce advocate for sexual assault survivors.
The professor recently gave the commencement speech at Wellesley College and discussed how sexual assault deniers enable men to keep doing what they’re doing.
She told the graduating class,
“There are those who would have us believe that the stories and statistics, showing the prevalence of sexual misconduct are a hoax. They prefer to believe in their own myths, often misogynist, about the behavior.”
She added,
“And despite the evidence, sexual misconduct deniers have friends in high places. So the problem is not just the behavior, it’s the enabling that goes along with it.”
But despite everything that’s happened to her, Hill still believes that we can win the fight against sexual harassment.
“We are fortunate, we outnumber them. We are louder than they are … and we are ready to take them on.”
Hill’s story has recently come back into the public eye after history repeated itself and Professor Christine Blasey Ford had to testify against now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who assaulted her when she was a young girl.
And now that former Vice President Joe Biden is running for President, his horrible treatment of Hill back in the day has been a topic of discussing as well. His lack of an apology and insistence that he personally didn’t do anything to harm her has been particularly disturbing.
