An elegant impassioned demand that America see gender-based violence as a cultural and
structural problem that hurts everyone not just victims and survivors It's at times downright
virtuosic in the threads it weaves together. NPRWinner of the 2022 ABA Silver Gavel Award for
Books From the woman who gave the landmark testimony against Clarence Thomas as a sexual menace
a new manifesto about the origins and course of gender violence in our society a combination
of memoir personal accounts law and social analysis and a powerful call to arms from one of
our most prominent and poised survivors. In 1991 Anita Hill began something that's still
unfinished work. The issues of gender violence touching on sex race age and power are as
urgent today as they were when she first testified. Believing is a story of America's three
decades long reckoning with gender violence one that offers insights into its roots and paths
to creating dialogue and substantive change. It is a call to action that offers guidance based
on what this brave committed fighter has learned from a lifetime of advocacy and her search
for solutions to a problem that is still tearing America apart. We once thought gender-based
violence--from casual harassment to rape and murder--was an individual problem that affected a
few we now know it's cultural and endemic and happens to our acquaintances colleagues
friends and family members and it can be physical emotional and verbal. Women of color
experience sexual harassment at higher rates than White women. Street harassment is ubiquitous
and can escalate to violence. Transgender and nonbinary people are particularly vulnerable.
Anita Hill draws on her years as a teacher legal scholar and advocate and on the experiences
of the thousands of individuals who have told her their stories to trace the pipeline of
behavior that follows individuals from place to place: from home to school to work and back
home. In measured clear blunt terms she demonstrates the impact it has on every aspect of
our lives including our physical and mental wellbeing housing stability political
participation economy and community safety and how our descriptive language undermines
progress toward solutions. And she is uncompromising in her demands that our laws and our
leaders must address the issue concretely and immediately.
