I’m not big on anniversaries. My husband usually has to remind me of our wedding anniversary. But a couple of recent anniversaries have me in a reflective mood. The anniversary of the election, of course; and the day just over a year ago, last October 21, when I set up my Kos account. What was I thinking last fall — what on earth motivated this otherwise rather private person, who avoids Facebook and other social media, to enter this brave new world of blogging? Answer: sexual harassment, mostly.
It was constantly in my thoughts. As I e-mailed a friend last November 5,
I was braced for all the sexism that would come spewing forth during a Hillary Clinton campaign (after all, looking at the racism that Obama's presidency stirred up), but it surprised me how painful it has been for me to see it come to pass. At all levels from the blaring double standards to the crude language: all those hideous T-shirts at Trump rallies, having to explain to [my 9-year old son] what the "Trump that Bitch" bumper stickers we see around town mean.
Topping that off, all the post-pussy-tape discussion about sexual assault and harassment has got me thinking more about my own sexual harassment experience in grad school way more than I ever wanted to... so there's been all this psychological turmoil in it for me, well beyond my usual pre-election fretting over Supreme Court justices and climate change.
After Trump loses, I hope I can move away from this emotional cesspool I've been living in these last few weeks. At least for a while! Though I don't think the sexism is going to diminish once Hillary takes office, nope.
And that, of course, was me in an optimistic mood.
In no small part, it was the pussy tape and its fallout that led me to join DKos. I've always followed politics closely and have long been a loyal Democrat, but last October’s events (the tape, the revelations of Trump’s assaults, his piggish behavior at the debates) hit me in the gut. I became an emotional wreck, despite the great promise of the polls.
I was sexually harassed in graduate school, in the 1990s. I salvaged an academic career out of the wreckage. I don't talk about it much. Some twenty years later, it's still painful.
I found much solace in this community last fall. The brave women (victims of Trump and many others) who came forward to share their sexual harassment stories helped me to better understand my own story, and it was here at DKos that I began to become involved – commenting, recc’ing, getting to know a bit about the lives of some of the writers and commenters. As I toyed with the idea of writing a diary about my own experiences, I got encouragement from people I corresponded with in New Diarists and other groups. Several suggested that I wait till after the election to go forward with the diary because they would then have more time to give me advice, review drafts, and so on. So I waited, and slowly my diary took shape.
My diary said a lot of what I wanted to say about my experience. Here’s one of the opening paragraphs:
Donald Trump's contribution to the sexual harassment discussion that has been simmering away for years has been, well, YUUGE, spurring women to come forward with their horror stories, often after years of silence. I'm going to be one of them. I've been thinking almost obsessively about my own experiences since Trump's victims started coming forward (and not long before them, those of Roger Ailes). Over the years I've told some of my friends and colleagues a little about what happened to me in graduate school, but I find it so difficult to discuss that I inevitably stop short of providing a full account. The women who've come forward on Daily Kos have spurred me to put my self-doubt aside for long enough to write this post.
I hope that the more of us that come forward, the less this crap will keep happening.
I wrote about the harassment, and what happened when, finally, threatened with the loss of years’ worth of work and a publication that was to be part of my thesis, I told my dissertation advisor and a few other professors what was going on. I wrote about the man who told me that “boys will be boys” (referring to a man in his mid 40s), the men who expressed to me great concern not about my career but only about my harasser’s, the man who said I should have been grateful for and flattered by the attention, the supposedly feminist man who said it was perfectly understandable and appropriate for someone whose love interest had spurned him to attack her professionally as well as personally.
I wrote about how I still fear my harasser.
He's still employed in my field. It's been nearly 20 years since he last threatened physical violence, and although that was probably bluster, I don't want to risk rekindling his anger. He used to tell me that he kept grudges a long time, and offered some disturbing examples of his vengeful acts, including his years-long campaigns to discredit other female scientists who had displeased him. I still fear embarrassment. Few know what happened, and though approaching middle age, with tenure and a satisfying professional and personal life, I cringe at the thought of once again stirring up the salacious rumors and crude lies about my scholarly aptitude and my character. I look for him anxiously at every scientific conference I attend.
As the election became a referendum on sexual assault and harassment and violence against women, I was framing my diary in a triumphant mood: Trump kicks a hornet's nest of angry women, who rise up in solidarity to share their stories and then beat the crap out of him at the ballot box. Here is my story!
This was to be one of the closing bits:
I'm in a better mood now than when I first started writing this. Voting for Hillary and against Trump made me feel like I was slapping back. Of course I had many, many reasons to vote for her beyond this rather personal one, but it sweetened the victory for me in such a deep way.
I never did publish that diary.
For a moment, last fall, I felt that the world was willing to listen to people like me. Trump's victory, then, was the triumph of the perpetrators; his victims – all of us victims – were to shut up and go away again.
I ducked back into my silence.
As the shock of Trump’s election wore off (sort of), I’ve since thought about reworking that diary, perhaps framing it in a less personal way. More recent revelations of sexual harassment of science grad students (e.g., in entomology and in geology) have reminded me of the pervasiveness of harassment in science (a 2015 survey found that 1 of 3 female science professors reported having been harassed) and the importance of more senior women – like myself – stepping forward. When I was harassed, no one seemed to know quite what to do. None of the professors I sought help from had ever dealt with such a situation before; there was no clear course to follow, nor were there any tenured female professors in my orbit who might have taken charge or at least offered sympathy and advice. I spoke at a scientific conference in 1999 in which I was one of only two women giving talks (of some 50-60 presentations). Now, however, at the meetings of the same society, nearly half the presenters are women, with women well represented at all ranks from grad students to full professors. And sexual harassment has been much discussed in the media. Things should be different now – at least they can be.
In revisiting my thoughts of last October, it occurs to me that it is time to try to recapture some of that optimism that I sensed at the time, some of the fighting spirit. The fight wouldn't have been over with Trump's defeat, anyways, however satisfying that would have been. The revelations of this past month – Weinstein et al. – demonstrate that. They also demonstrate what can happen to a perpetrator when women step forward. He can be stopped.
My optimism will of course have to be tempered by the fact that harassment allegations have a rather sad history of going nowhere. Reflecting on the successful ascendancies of Clarence Thomas and Donald Trump amidst public outcry, Katha Pollitt recently wrote,
Somehow the truth opens a door, and light pours through. Then, as if it would beam into too many dark corners, we close that door again.
The contrast in outcomes for Trump and for Weinstein to a great extent reflects the identity of their victims. Jane Meyer, who wrote a book on the Thomas hearings, pointed out that the greater the power difference between the accuser and the accused, the less likely the accuser will be believed, and her harasser punished:
Sexual harassment is about power, not sex, and it has taken women of extraordinary power to overcome the disadvantage that most accusers face. As Susan Faludi, the author of “Backlash: the Undeclared War Against Women,” put it in an e-mail to me, “Power belongs only to the celebrities these days. If only Trump had harassed Angelina Jolie. . . .”
Anita Hill, a woman with unusual insight into this topic, agrees that the nature of Weinstein’s accusers is the reason that his exposure has proved to be a watershed moment. In a phone interview, Hill emphasized that sexual-harassment cases live and die on the basis of “believability,” and that, in order for the accusers to prevail, “they have to fit a narrative” that the public will buy. At least until now, very few women have had that standing.
The majority of us working women are nobodies, more or less, and many of us will still face disbelief and scorn should we bring forth a harassment accusation. Moreover, we usually lack the advantage of numbers that, for example, Weinstein’s accusers had: most harassers have many fewer victims, and even fewer that speak out. But the sheer number of voices now being heard seems to be bringing a certain positive momentum to the discussion. Everyone’s credibility is being boosted. More people are being reached, and educated about the problem. Women may be more likely to come forward, more hopeful that they may find a sympathetic audience.
As Hill stated, in the interview cited above, “We need to transfer the believability.” An open discussion, a wide-ranging discussion, across many professions, can only help reach this goal. I’m just not optimistic that progress will be as rapid as many of us hope. But things are moving in the right direction.
And as Gloria Steinem wrote the day after the election,
Trump’s very public misogyny has unified women, educated men and inspired activism…. And even in this moment, we have to recognize that electing one African American president and nominating one potential female president was only a beginning. We all will have to learn that the president can only hold a finger to the wind. We must become the wind.
With Trump in office, I haven’t regained the courage I felt when I thought that his defeat was near. While I may not yet be ready to discuss my harassment experience at length in public, I have discussed it more, recently, with others around me, and thus I try to contribute to the discussion, and to the empowerment of women, in what small ways I can. Mostly this has taken the form of advising students and colleagues who have been harassed. At least they have someone to turn to.
As I say at the end of my scientific talks: Any Questions?