On Katie Hill: Biphobia and Misogyny are Alive and Well
I remember the first time I read the name Katie Hill. I was trying to figure out if I should already know who she was, and why naked pictures of her would amount to a major scandal. If you grew up, like I did, in a mostly white, mostly middle-class neighborhood during the 80s and 90s, Katie Hill is a name that sounds familiar whether you’ve heard it or not. Quickly I learned she was a congresswoman from California whose nude pictures led to her political demise. It caught my attention, though. Not just another sex scandal out of Capitol Hill.
The first time I saw her picture I was surprised at how youthful she looked — younger than I am, even. It’s rare to see people the ages of my friends and classmates in federal political positions, but there she is, looking like the ambitious, serious, young woman she is in her suits, her dirty-blonde hair pulled into a smart ponytail. It didn’t take more than her name and picture to feel like I liked her because she seemed like a classic example of a woman from my generation, the people I shared lockers with, trudged through college with, went to weddings and baby showers with, the people I stood beside as life’s tragedies began showing up in our adult worlds — divorces, still births, cancer diagnoses, and loss in all its forms.
Her nude photos were taken not because she had consented to them, but because someone (her husband at the time) felt entitled to take them. They were shared with the world not because she decided to share them, but because someone leaked them. Her ex-husband, she suspected, did it in retaliation for her leaving him. Again, this was familiar. If you are a woman in her thirties and you haven’t either cried with another woman over her abusive relationship, helped and encouraging her, reminded her she was worthy of more than that, or been in an abusive relationship yourself, then you are a rare bird indeed.
When I finally discovered/realized/accepted my bisexual identity, I was already a long time into a good marriage, a decade into parenting a child together. When same sex relationships are deeply associated with shame and evil, it takes awhile to accept that such a desire could be alive in yourself. One of the losses I’ve mourned is the loss of opportunity to explore that facet of myself before settling into commitment. So when I found out Katie Hill’s nudes weren’t just any nudes, I felt a dose of envy mixed with my anguish for her. Here she was, doing what I hoped and wished I could have done in my late twenties and early thirties — exploring relationships in different configurations with different people — and she was being slandered for it, treated as if she’d committed some atrocity.
She further won my heart when she took full responsibility for the impropriety of the specific nature of the relationship since it was with a campaign staffer (a subordinate, though in Vice’s campaign videos they clearly function much more like team mates). I was and still am devastated that she felt she needed to leave office. Men are constantly involved in sex scandals that seem to disappear in an instant. Her treatment by the press and by the public was laden with misogyny. The inherent bi-phobia in the reaction to it is one of the most overlooked aspects of the whole situation, though Katie herself has called it out. No one wants to hear about bi-phobia because most people believe in the lies that it tells — that bisexuals are hyper sexual, that they want to bone everything that moves, that they are promiscuous cheaters, not to be trusted. These ideas are as rampant in the gay and lesbian community as in the straight community. If you’re bi-phobic, it’s easy to cling to Katie’s situation as a confirmation of all of those things. Never mind the reality that she was in a consenting relationship with an adult. Never mind that though the arrangement was not traditional, her husband was involved in and consenting to the relationship as well. Never mind that adults are allowed to have relationships with other adults when they are all consenting. Never mind that someone violated her privacy on a deep level by first taking her picture and then leaking it to the media. The ethics of consent and the right to privacy are small potatoes when you do the worst thing that a woman in American culture can possibly do: pursue (and enjoy!) sex with another human, and another woman to boot.
What I learned about our society from this incident is that we are more concerned with whether or not someone is conforming to a hetero-normative traditional relationship than we are with whether or not that person has a right to privacy. I learned that being a woman who has ever been overtly sexual, even in her private life, is a more heinous crime than being a man who rapes an unconscious woman (see Brock Turner), a teenage boy who nearly strangles a teenage girl in an attempt to rape her (see Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh), or a sitting president who abuses his power by having an extramarital sexual relationship with an intern (see Bill Clinton). I learned that we believe it’s acceptable for very powerful men to exploit women who are young enough to be their own daughters, but we don’t think it’s okay when a junior congresswoman has a sexual relationship that violates a minor work boundary with someone who isn’t even a decade younger than she is. Bill Clinton, I learned, is a hero. Katie Hill, I learned, is a zero. One is a man entitled to take what he wants, one is a woman and therefore her body and sexuality belong to men and the public at large.
We love to pretend that somehow we’ve moved past misogyny and homophobia, but last I checked more than a third of Americans don’t even support gay marriage . I shouldn’t have expected the court of public opinion to focus on the way Katie Hill’s privacy was violated, or on the way she was being abused by news media and politicians when we can all act scandalized by her polyamorous relationship with a woman instead. We love to pretend that the #MeToo movement somehow solved the problem of women being sexually harassed and abused by men, but this story is evidence that we have not. Not even close.
The way Hill handled the leak and the media response was laudable. She owned and took responsibility for the impropriety that had, in fact, been committed. She didn’t try to squirm out of it or excuse her misconduct. She didn’t try to pivot the attention to the way she had been wronged by this leak, though I believe she had every right to do that. Her apology was clear and filled with remorse. It was the textbook definition of how to handle a scandal. It seems, though, that the entire affair was too much for her to take and remain in office. Unsurprisingly, bisexuals are more likely to struggle with mental health and deal with discrimination than gays and lesbians, so under the circumstances it all makes sense. Maybe this is why we hate all our politicians — because we insist on running out all the ones who have a conscience. Maybe this is why politicians are notorious liars — because the truth & integrity kill their careers and scar them forever.
It’s been nine months since she resigned, nine months since this woman, one of many in similar circumstances, decided the strain this sexual harassment put on her life and her mental health was too great to continue her job. When I first saw her picture, it wasn’t just the girl next door vibe that made her familiar. It was the “I’m done with this bullshit” vibe. It was the unwillingness of my generation of women to sit down and allow men to define who we are. It was her dogged determination to never be one of the abusers, to never stoop to their level, to admit her mistakes, and at the same time say no. No to the man who took her picture without her consent. No to the man or men who leaked her pictures to the conservative “news” websites. No to the people who wrote articles about her, shaming her for having ever dared to be nude. No to the people who called her a whore in the comments sections. She said I’m sorry, and she said no.
It wasn’t just that she was my age or has a common name for people in my own demographic that made me feel kinship to her. It was the fire of self-preservation. It was the flame of independence that led her to seek such a position in the first place. It was her willingness to light a match to her entire political career because it was a better choice than taking one more second of abuse. Pay attention to Katie Hill and her story. Pay attention to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Because millennial women are hitting middle age. We are old enough to run for congress, some of us are even old enough to run for president, and our work is just beginning.
Other links:
Katie Hill’s Resignation Speech
An opinion piece she wrote for The New York Times in December 2019
