Past & Present: Watching with Antia

https://www.thecut.com/2018/09/kavanaugh-hearings-anita-hill.html

I fount his Cut article very interesting because it was a question I was wondering about myself: "What does Anita Hill" think about the current preceding. There situations are similar in a lot of ways and very different in others, but stakes are the same: should the accused be a Supreme Court justice?

I liked the how the women described Hill's demeanor. She remained calm and collected, just like Ford had to do during her testimony and just like Hill had to do herself in 1991.

Unlike Brett Kavanaugh or Clarence Thomas, the women had to remain focused, compliant and pleasant. No matter how serious or traumatic the experience, a woman must not be come hysterical, lest she not be believed. The attribution of women's real issues to "hysteria" that they made up is a very old trope. It can be seen as far back as the salem witch trials and is still present today in the way in which assault survivors must hold themselves together and bend their personality to fit the model of an ideal witness.

Faced with any the challenge of having inconsistencies or mistakes picked apart, Women often have to do the extraneous emotional labor of relieving their trauma with a serious demeanor or a smile that will hopefully be enough for everyone else to believe.