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.. (S) Exit: Power and the Idea of Leaving in Love, Work, and the Confirmation Hearings MARTHA R. MAHONEY How could she have brought herself to follow Judge Thomas so faithfully and so long in her career, given the sordid remarks he allegedly made to her?l On cross-examination, when discussing an occasion when Mr. Kelly temporarily moved out of the house, the State repeatedly asked Ms. Kelly: ''You wanted him back, didn't you?" The implication was clear: domestic life could not have been too bad if she wanted him back.2 EXIT-THE DOOR with the glowing red sign-marks the road not taken that proves we chose our path. Prevailing ideology in both law and popular culture holds that people are independent and autonomous units, free to leave any situation at any time, and that what happens to us is therefore in some measure the product of our choice. When women are harmed in love or work, the idea of exit becomes central to the social and legal dialogue in which our experience is processed, reduced, reconstructed and dismissed. Exit is so powerful an image that it can be used both to dispute the truth of our statements and to keep people from hearing what we say at all. The image of exit hides oppression behind a mask of choice, forces upon us a discourse of victimization that emphasizes individualism and weakness rather than collectivity and strength, and conceals the possibility and necessity of alliance and resistance to oppression . I began writing this essay [when] the Senate confirmed the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. [I] mages of the hearings are still before me: ofAnita Hill testifying-graceful and composed, tiring as the day wears on, maintaining dignity, clarity, directness, honesty.3 OfOrrin Hatch's face, filling the screen-the Grand Inquisitor, reprocessing her testimony. Of Clarence Thomas, rigid in his chair, claiming he is being lynched for his independence.4 [T]his essay addresses the ways in which failure to exit was used against Anita Hill in the Senate and in public discourse. I compare the treatment of exit in the confirmation hearings with cases involving battered women. 65 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1283 (1992). reprinted with the permission of the Southern California Law Review. Copyrighted Material 845 846 I MARTHA R. MAHONEY Love and work are the most important areas oflife, from which life gains meaning, satisfaction and pleasure. Battering and sexual harassment are abuses of power within the relational worlds of love and work. Battering is about power over the lover: the attempt to exercise power and control marked by a pattern of violent and coercive behaviors . Sexual harassment is an abuse of power associated particularly with the workplace .... The Importance of Exit [A]n "outraged person" would [not] stay with a mentor who psychologically abused her, until she was secure enough to make her own way....5 [O]ne of the common myths, apparently believed by most people, is that battered wives are free to leave. To some, this [suggests masochism] ... to others, however, the fact that [she] stays on unquestionably suggests that the "beatings" could not have been too bad for if they had been, she certainly would have left.6 During the week of the confirmation hearings, newspapers repeatedly cited studies of working women, including lawyers, who said that they neither filed complaints nor left their jobs when they encountered sexual harassment.7 Many women said they would just tell the offender to stop ('Just say knock it off'). Anita Hill's story generally tracked this course of action: She said she told her supervisor, Clarence Thomas, that she would not go out with him and that she didn't enjoy sexual conversations; she believed she had successfully handled the situation when the harassment stopped, found the recurrence of harassment distressing, and finally left for academic employment. Nevertheless, those who supported the confirmation discussed Anita Hill's story as if it did not follow a plausible course. In particular, the fact that she continued to work for Clarence Thomas was used to discredit her account of harassment: first, she continued to work for him at the Department of Education, then she moved to the EEOC and continued to work for him there. The move to the EEOC lent a heightened sense of affirmative choice, since she continued working with him rather than trying to continue in an unknown job in the same department. Failure to exit was raised to...

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