Anita Hill on New Film, Why She Continues to Speak on Behalf of Harassment Victims: 'I'm Not Going to Stop'
It's been 23 years since Anita Hill testified about the alleged harassment she received at the hands of Clarence Thomas. Now, Hill is the star of a new film, "Anita," which details her feelings about the Supreme Court case and Hill's life post-testimony.
"Initially, I thought I would just go back and do what I do: commercial law and contracts," Hill told Slate's Dahlia Lithwick of her time after giving her Supreme Court testimony. "But within months I was getting so many requests that it just felt that there was a sincere effort for people to understand sexual harassment. It took a lot of letters from people who were asking really sincere questions, and so I gave it two years. And 23 years later … I say to people I do know how to count. There just seem to be so many layers to the problem that we're still trying to address them."
Hill noted that she still sees the same problems that were present 23 years ago and even beyond: women still suffering harassment and blaming one another or not being believed by others when they tell their stories. It's one of the main reasons that she chose to participate in "Anita," which provides an intimate look at her life now and then. Hill praises her parents and credits them with her continuing work on behalf of women who need it.
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"My parents raised 13 children – my mother was born in 1911, my father in 1912 – they raised almost all of us in segregation with blatant sex discrimination, and they raised us to be strong and to be confident and to do the right thing," Hill told HuffPost Live. "And so giving up and saying, 'I'm not gonna go forward' – this was not an option. It's not what they taught me to do, and it's not what I knew to be the best thing to do."
"Anita" opened in theaters on March 21.
