Alyssa Milano: Kavanaugh's Confirmation Doesn't Mean We're Giving Up

I’ve thought about Anita Hill often in the past week, as the hearings to appoint Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court advanced despite the multiple credible allegations of sexual misconduct against him. I think about how a panel of white men questioned Anita Hill about her sexual past and how despicably she was treated by politicians of both parties. I think about how far we’ve come in many regards. And at the same time, and in the same breath, I lament how much farther we have yet to go.

In 1991, there were only two women in the Senate: Barbara Mikulski of Maryland and Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas. Neither sat on the Judiciary Committee, and the voices of women in the process of confirming Justice Clarence Thomas were easy to ignore by the 98 men who made up the rest of the body. The results were powerful: The 1992 elections saw the unprecedented feat of four women elected to the Senate. It was dubbed “The Year of the Woman.”

The progress since then has been slow but striking. There are now 23 women in the United States Senate. It’s a far cry from a representative number, but it is a level of influence in the U.S. government that was probably unimaginable to Hill when she sat in front of a panel of hostile and condescending men. I’ve long wondered just how differently that hearing might have been if there had been more women in the Senate in 1991. Would there have been softening of the unnecessary and pejorative personal attacks? Would the questions have been focused on the nominee instead of the woman he victimized?

Now, 27 years later, we know. And heartbreakingly, it’s not the answer I would have hoped.

The Kavanaugh hearings looked different from the Thomas hearings — at least on one side of the aisle. Ranking member Dianne Feinstein, Mazie Hirono, Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris comprise nearly half of the Democratic members of the committee. And the tenor of their questions for Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford will stand in history as a stark contrast to those received by Justice Thomas and Hill. The Republican side, however, looks just like it did in 1991. All white men. And their questioning reflected that same undeniable narrow perspective.

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https://variety.com/2018/biz/news/alyssa-milano-brett-kavanaugh-guest-column-1202973036/