Christine Blasey Ford for a post-Anita Hill Generation
I’m not sure what generation I belong to. I was born in 1997, which depending on who you ask could make me a young millennial or an old Gen Z-er. Whichever it is, we’re becoming a more vocal and socially active age group; one often defined by our empathy and desire for connection. Those of us born after 1985 are running for office, starting companies, and making names for ourselves. More of us can vote every day, and we also tend to be more politically liberal. The question then becomes whether that is a function of being young, a factor typically associated with more progressive viewpoints, or whether there is something truly different about our generation.
One place we see this age divide is in the issue of sexual assault, which has been an increasingly hot-button issue in recent years, especially since the New York Times published an article detailing decades of sexual assault allegations against prominent producer Harvey Weinstein in October 2017. But what’s crucial to remember and seemingly too often forgotten is that sexual harassment and assault are not new issues, nor have they increased in recent years. In fact, RAINN reports a decrease in sexual violence since 1993. Thus, the actual incidents have not increased in frequency; what has changed is the national conversation and awareness surrounding them.
Sexual assault recently became a contentious national discussion when Dr. Christine Blasey Ford raised allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The Ford hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee was eerily reminiscent of Anita Hill’s testimony in 1991 during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of now-Justice Clarence Thomas. The youngest voters in the upcoming midterm elections were born in 2000, nearly a full decade after Anita Hill’s courageous testimony. For us, the hearings fall into a strange place somewhere between history and current events. We’ve heard how controversial it was when Anita Hill came forward with allegations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas, and those of us in raised in more liberal spheres may have also been told how uncomfortable it was to watch a panel made up entirely of white men interrogate a black woman — but we didn’t actually see it. One clear parallel in Dr. Ford’s testimony was the fact that the Republicans of the Senate Judiciary Committee, still all white men, hired an outside prosecutor, a woman, to lead the questioning.
Our generation seems less willing to ignore allegations and more prone to hold people responsible for their actions. A recent poll found that 60% of those aged 18–29 oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court — this is in stark contrast to those aged 45–59, 41% of whom oppose Kavanaugh. During the time of the Anita Hill hearings, the latter group would have been between 18 and 32 years old.
A New York Times piece from the time of the 1991 hearings reported reactions from young people that sound like what one might expect to hear from an older person today: “‘She might have thought some of this stuff up in her head,” Ms. Seurattan, 29, said. “Women have a tendency to do that sometime.’” Here we can see that the generation that didn’t believe Anita Hill, even as young people themselves, doesn’t feel much differently towards Christine Blasey Ford.
Is our generation special in terms of our priorities and beliefs? I can’t say definitively. What I do know is that after the prevalence of female candidates in the midterm elections in 1992 led to it being referred to as “The Year of the Woman,” one possible explanation for the high number of female candidates being a response to Justice Thomas’ confirmation to the Supreme Court. While Dr. Ford’s immense bravery may not have prevented Kavanaugh from ultimately being appointed to the Court, I choose to believe that 2018 will be the biggest year of the woman yet. And in 27 years, when someone comes forward with a story of sexual violence from the year 2018, we will be the generation that believes and supports them.
