Three decades later, what do 65-year old Hill wish she had told 35-yearold Hill, the young, bright-blue-suited professor who testified calmly, deliberately that day, but had no idea of what lay ahead?
She says, “I wish that I knew then that the work would be difficult.” She says she should be patient, diligent, and patient. As a lawyer, she thought institutions would do their jobs. “What I didn’t understand was our culture denial.”
It is safe to say that Hill, a soft-spoken, extremely private person who spent her whole adult life in the classroom, did not plan to become an activist. She was a powerful symbol after the Thomas hearings. She teaches gender, race, and law at Brandeis University. In addition to other advocacy work, she chairs The Hollywood Commission which combats harassment in the entertainment sector.
Hill’s latest project combines activism and academia. “Believing: A Thirty-Year Journey To End Gender Violence” is Hill’s new book. It contains extensive research on gender violence, including its roots and impact as well as ways to combat it.
Hill, her third book, said that the urgency of the book was heightened by the pandemic in 2020. Hill was shocked to learn that intimate partner violence had increased during the initial days of the pandemic.
Hill uses a combination of legal analysis, academic studies, and interviews to examine different areas of society. He finds that while there is a greater understanding of gender violence and sexual harassment today than there was three decades ago, when Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson called it “that sexual harassment crap”, there is still a lack of understanding of the root causes.
She says that it is unrealistic to assume that a younger generation will have the same level of maturity and values as the older generation to eliminate gender violence.
Hill states that “it’s dangerous for us not to believe that gender violence isn’t a big problem, and that it’s not an issue that’s affecting all of us,” Hill said. “There is probably no one who doesn’t have a story to tell about something that happened to them, or someone they know.”
She says that despite millions of #MeToo Twitters sharing similar experiences, “Christine Blasey Ford” testified about her own experience of sexual assault, and the Senate refused to do an extensive investigation.
