The Struggle to Be Heard: The Experts Speak
Part One
Historian Amy Leonard speaks on the evolution of the conversation surrounding sexual assault.
Interviewed By Morgan Hines
Amy Leonard, 52, is an Associate Professor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Georgetown University History Department. She teaches courses that focus on gender, religion and Early Modern Europe. She joined the faculty in 1999 and gained tenure in 2005. Leonard is also the author of Nails in the Wall: Catholic Nuns in Reformation Germany and Masculinities, Violence, Childhood: Attending to early modern women and men with Karen Taylor.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Throughout history, what is the likelihood that women have been listened to about rape?
That’s a really complicated question because so much of it depends on what women are claiming, and in what kind of context, what’s their class, what’s their race, what’s their marital status, what’s their sexual status. So, say, we’re talking about my period, we’re talking about Early Modern Europe or pre-modern Europe, if it is a white women — a virgin from a good family who everyone has considered to be honorable — and she is claiming rape against some hooligan on the road, then yes, she is going to be listened to but it’s not her it’s being listened to, it’s her family, it’s her father, it’s the reputation that is connected to her.
That’s not to say that rape wasn’t taken seriously for a lot of other people but there were some women who couldn’t be raped. A wife couldn’t be raped by her husband. Prostitutes couldn’t be raped. A woman who hangs out with soldiers can’t be raped. A woman who runs a tavern or hangs out at a tavern couldn’t be raped. Then there are all kinds of requirements that still kind of come up when people talk about rape now.
We’ve had congressmen and people in the government saying a woman can shut down her body during rape so she doesn’t get pregnant, so that still hangs around — that notion that somehow women have control over these kinds of things.
Some of the things that have happened in history that have been so hugely important — that are still contested — is this notion that first off, any woman can be raped, it doesn’t matter your class, your race, your marital status, any woman can be raped; that rape can be not just the stranger on the street with violence but that it can include things like date rape, it can include your husband it can include when you’re incapacitated, that rape is about consent, not anything else.
But as we are seeing now, all the kinds of debates going on about Kavanaugh and things like that, it’s still not cut and dry.
When did you see things start to change?
In the 80’s when I was in high school and college it was just when you started to talk about the concept date rape, and that was not something that my mother would have grown up with. If you invited a man over to your house or up to your dorm room and you were making out with him and told him ‘No.’ and ended up still having sex that was your fault.
The fact that discourse has changed, that is something that the 70’s and 80’s brought about — of women being able to say, ‘No. I should be able to say no when I want.’ That’s still a fairly recent thing and we’re still seeing pushback against that.
I think our ways of talking about sex, physical intimacy and rape would be transformed if that is the way that the younger generation was being raised.
How does the Christine Blasey Ford/Brett Kavanaugh hearing compare to the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearing?
We were still in the early days of talking about how much respect women should get and the ‘boys will be boys’ sort of, so at the time a lot of people were like ‘oh he was just joking’ or ‘oh it’s not a big deal.’ And now I think we’re at a different moment because of #MeToo.
What do you think about the fact that 16/21 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are men?
I think that will definitely have an impact. It’s sad that it becomes identity politics in this way. I think that there are plenty of woke men out there and that they’re trying their best to learn from this and do all this but it’s not the same as having gone through it yourself.
All of us [women] have been in situations where today we would call it sexual harassment. All of us have been pressured into having sex, well most of us, when we probably didn’t want to or didn’t have a choice about it. Every woman understands that situation and men just don’t. That doesn’t mean they’re not sympathetic and it doesn’t mean they can’t try. That’s why #MeToo has been so incredibly powerful because you see all these men saying, ‘really, all of you?’ and it’s like yeah, all of us.
Are women listened to more now than they were in 1991?
Yes, I think they are. We still have a long way to go but I think that we’re listened to more.
Say you look at the History Department at Georgetown. So up until the 80’s there were two women in that department. When the first women came in in the 70’s there were still only two women for the next two decades and now you look around and it’s about 35 to 40 percent women. When women would talk in the department she would talk and they would ignore her and then a man would repeat what she said and get the credit for it and that’s a classic thing. Now, there are too many women to do that. The fact that there are just more women out there in positions of authority means that women are going to be listened to more.
How do you think the #MeToo movement has had an impact?
I think because all these issues are out there and the vocabulary — the language is out there now — of consent versus not, date rape versus not, power, power differentials, things that I think with Anita Hill people weren’t as comfortable talking about and weren’t as sort of familiar with, I think that #MeToo now has that as the backdrop.
My hope is that the questioning won’t be along the lines of ‘well, you were drunk what were you expecting?’
Because I think that there’s so much out there of these men’s daughters and sisters and mothers, everybody’s wives. All the kinds of stories of when they were drunk and when this happens and how horrible they felt about it so that can’t be dismissed any more of ‘you were drinking, you no longer have a right to your body.’ That is one of the things that I think #MeToo has done aside from showing how many women have been through this.
Women are a huge force in voting. And so many of us have been so galvanized by what’s going on and November is right around the corner. So I really hope that the people that are asking these questions are not going to alienate those women out there and are going to try to be respectful of a woman saying that this horrible thing happened to her. And I think that that is very much because of #MeToo.
Part Two
Political consultant Pamela Eakes says women still don’t have enough seats at the table.
Interviewed by Ali Swenson
Political consultant Pamela Eakes was one of three female executives at the Chicago-based advertising agency Leo Burnett in the 1970s — and the first one to have a baby. She worked to advance the campaigns of female political candidates as a development director for Emily’s List, the pro-choice Political Action Committee, and a co-founder of the Chicago Women’s Political Caucus. Since then, as a campaign staffer for Democratic candidates and a political strategist, she has continued to fight for women to have a voice in politics.
In an interview with The Brooklyn Ink, Eakes reflects on what’s changed since she started her career, how the 1991 Anita Hill hearing empowered women like no other event in history, and what she expects to result from Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony on Thursday.
What do you remember from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s questioning of Anita Hill in 1991?
Prior to that hearing, it was really hard to persuade women that they needed to think about writing a $100 check to a woman candidate. We had to give them reasons why. But then Anita Hill happened. It went crazy. The way the questions were asked and the personal part of the way Anita answered those questions really began to set me and other women on fire. And we got mad. We had made some assumptions to ourselves that…she would be believed, but she wasn’t believed. And we could tell that she wasn’t.
What changes did you notice in the political landscape immediately after the hearing?
Women decided to acknowledge publicly that they would engage in politics. Before, it was just a quiet thing that women did. And it led to the biggest year of women being elected ever in United States history in Congress.
Do you think the sense of female empowerment you saw in 1992 has continued in the United States, or has it lost its fire?
It did last for a little while. But I believe that our party, and also, maybe it’s our fault, that women — we seized the power, we liked the power, and then we just said, “Well, that’s the way it’s going to be” and we didn’t continue to work toward it. There wasn’t another flicker, a flame, that said, “Oh, we better start getting back in.” We just kind of let the flame barely go out until it’s just a little candle and then it’s not out, but it wasn’t a bright light. We let up. Without any doubt, we let up.
How about now, with the #MeToo movement?
Even though we’ve been marching for equality for a long time, the #MeToo movement has given women courage and also put the perpetrators in a very awkward situation in which they were, before, self-entitled. There’s always been a sense of, “men can do things with women.” And I do believe that that is changing. And I do believe that this might be the real turning point in that effort.
Do you think politicians in America take cases of sexual assault more seriously than they did in 1991?
Maybe, but sometimes they pretend they do. There’s a lot of hypocrisy that’s going on every time you turn around.
Some Republicans in Congress are saying they’ll confirm Brett Kavanaugh no matter what happens at the hearing. Why do you think politicians are taking this stance?
They want the fifth judge that is going to overturn Roe, and that’s all that matters to them. So, they are willing to sacrifice the country for their party and their philosophical desire to overturn Roe.
Backing up for a moment, do you think that, overall, women are listened to more in 2018 than they were in 1991?
It depends on who’s listening. I think that our voices are at more tables, and that’s a good thing. There are 12 doctors in Congress right now, no women doctors, and we’re studying health care for women. So, the absence of women at the table is a supreme detriment to the advancement of fairness in terms of making decisions that are favorable to the highest levels of the needs of women and families.
At your advertising agency, you were one of very few women in leadership roles. Did you feel that men listened to you then, and do you feel that men listen to you more now?
I was mostly listened to, but there were other games you had to play at the same time. You had to be the first one in the office in the morning and the last one to leave, or you weren’t serious enough. When [I] spoke up at meetings, my voice was heard. At the same time, on business trips, it was all a guys’ trip and what the guys want to do. Compared to today — I’m older, I have earned some respect over the years for the things that I have done. I believe they listen to me. But that has to do with time and [experience] as much as anything else.
So, do you think women who enter their professional lives today are better positioned to be treated fairly than they might have been in the early 1990s?
I do. I believe that there’s some improvement there. We’re not anywhere close to being there. Until we are 51 percent of every legislative body in America, we do not have equal representation. We are way far away. Not equal.
If Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed, how do you think that will influence the way women are treated in politics moving forward?
The Republicans have made it clear that he’s going to be and they don’t care what she has to say. I believe and hope that women will see the unfairness of the situation and will know that they have to work — like we always have to — harder than ever before to attain the rightful respect, dignity, and voice in the country that we deserve.
I don’t know if we will do that. But in the end, I think we have a movement going, and it’s going to take a lot of hard work, especially hard work for 18-year-olds to 40-year-olds. I’ve been doing this for 45 years. Will we have 10 times as many women doing this for the next 40 years? If we do, then we have a full reason to expect full equality and representation in our government. If we don’t, we will fail.
These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.
