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@sophiabush : THIS. All of this. #Repost @cindi_leive ・・・ Twenty-seven years ago almost exactly, I sat glued to my TV along with the rest of America and watched Professor Anita Hill deliver searing, credible testimony about sexual harassment in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was the first political proceeding I’d paid much attention to, and I was riveted—not just by her calm, poised demeanor but by the way she was dismissed, disregarded and smeared by the powerful senators who grilled her, the pundits who discussed her case on TV and the establishment in general. (The American Spectator famously called this accomplished lawyer “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty.”) That weekend of hearings is part of what made me a feminist. Right now, as Professor Hill herself writes in @nytimes this morning, we’re in what feels like reruns, as Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh stands accused of assaulting Christine Blasey Ford, now a professor of clinical psychology, when they were both teenagers. We won’t know more about the case and these charges until Professor Ford and Kavanaugh testify Monday—but that hasn’t stopped some Senators from jumping to tired old 1991-style conclusions already. (Senator Orrin Hatch—one of the OG questioners from 1991!—had one phone conversation with Kavanaugh yesterday and told reporters “he’s an honest man” and that Professor Ford must have been “mixed up.” He hadn’t even spoken to her yet!) The message to our Senate must be: DO BETTER. As Professor Hill writes: “In 1991, the phrase ‘they just don’t get it’ became a popular way of describing senators’ reaction to sexual violence. With years of hindsight, mounds of evidence of the…harm that sexual violence causes…as well as a Senate with more women than ever, ‘not getting it’ isn’t an option for our elected representatives. In 2018, our senators must get it right.” Or get out. Please, America: Show us you’ve evolved. 📷: Greg Gibson/AP