John Oliver and Anita Hill Talk About #MeToo, 27 Years After Her Senate Hearing
It’s been 27 years since Anita Hill testified to the Senate that Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her. Clearly, a lot has changed since then-though Thomas did make it through those hearings and today sits on the Supreme Court.
Now, the current Brandeis University professor is seen as a public face of the #MeToo movement. She sat down with John Oliver on Sunday’s Last Week Tonight to talk about sexual harassment in the workplace in 2018. “I’m certainly more optimistic than I was 27 years ago,” she said, but that’s not saying too much.
In general, though, Hill said things are moving in the right direction. “There has been a tremendous amount of change in public attitude and there has been a change in the information we have about sexual harassment,” she said. “Even a few years ago, people were ambivalent about what the consequences should be concerning behaving incredibly badly in the workplace.”
Oliver asked her to weigh in on men who now say they’re afraid to be alone with women. Is that normal? “Not if they are not harassers,” Hill retorted.
He also opened up about how he sometimes didn’t speak up when he saw “creepy behavior” in the workplace, and asked how he should feel. “Slightly ashamed is a good start,” Hill joked. “Sometimes shame is helpful, sometimes shaming is not helpful. It just makes people feel guilty and maybe even resentful.”
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