Janine Jackson interviewed reproductive rights advocate Mallory McMaster about Katie Hill for the November 22, 2019, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: Among the most striking things about the case of California Rep. Katie Hill is how eager some people are to dispense with it. Hill’s story was gone from headlines not long after her late October resignation. But the issues her case raised, including the way misogyny attempts to undercut women's political agency by reducing them to sexual objects, aren't going anywhere.
Hill was set to be investigated by the House Ethics Committee for an allegation from her ex-husband of a consensual sexual relationship with a staffer, which violates House rules and which she denies. While those are the facts, they weren't the story, and that's the problem.
Joining us now to talk about this is Mallory McMaster, a reproductive rights advocate and owner of the social justice communications firm, the Fairmount Group. She joins us by phone from Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Welcome to CounterSpin, Mallory McMaster.
Mallory McMaster: Hi, Janine, thanks so much for having me on.
JJ: I'm just going to recap a bit here. The right-wing website RedState runs a story alleging that Katie Hill was having an affair with her male congressional legislative director—not much traction.
Then they run a story saying that Hill, her now ex-husband, and a female member of her campaign staff, had been in a relationship, with photos of Hill and the female staffer.
And then something is unleashed: Because the woman worked on Hill’s campaign before she was elected, that relationship is considered not illegal but inappropriate, and Hill apologized for it. But whatever folks are saying now, that sequence of events says a lot about the way our attention has been focused, wouldn’t you say?
MM: Oh, absolutely. I think the lack of attention around the initial claims wasn't surprising, but the fact that immediately when there were two women involved, there were photos of a sexual nature involved, when her sexuality was called into the headline—it wasn't heteronormative: She was bisexual and involved in a polyamorous, or open, relationship, and the word “throuple” was thrown in.
No one seems to be centering her well-being, her safety, or anyone's well-being or safety, in fact. They were sexualizing the entire situation, focusing on othering her and othering her partners. And lifting up the nature of the photographs that were released, and viewing the photographs that were released; I think that they were viewed millions of times on the internet that week, instead of people taking a critical look at what was happening in Hill’s life that was contributing to the abuse she was experiencing.
JJ: Well, RedState knew what they were doing. Conservative media followed up with details about other relationships in the past that had nothing to do with anything. They knew that they could just wave a hand in the sex direction, and then say “unfit for office,” and other folks would take it from there.
But let me put to you what, you know, serious-minded folks were saying. Some people were saying, "Look, it's cut and dried, she broke the #MeToo rule—that, by the way, you ladies were clamoring for.…"
But that's the allegation she denies, is the relationship with her actual staffer, and the staffer has not come forward. So this line of She broke the law, you've got to have a single standard—next!, feels like an eagerness to wash our hands of what we know was really the troubling thing going on here.
MM: Oh, absolutely. And I think that there's, on both sides of the political aisle—and I don't even know that there's a big divide anymore in the political aisle, when you look at the situation—there's a huge double standard.
We have the president of the United States, who’s facing.... I've lost count of the serious, credible accusations of sexual misconduct, and even rape. We have sitting members of Congress who have been accused of sexual misconduct and rapes, and they are indignantly remaining in their seats.
But in the case of Hill, everyone just shut it down and said, “Well, you broke the rules.” They didn't give her any chance to defend herself. No one offered the opportunity for due process. No one looked at it in the holistic lens or the greater picture of what she was going through at the time, and how the allegations were part of the abuse she was experiencing from her ex-husband, and how the right-wing media.... We found out later that the journalist who reported on these had worked for Hill’s opponent.
JJ: Right.
MM: And had been tweeting about how she couldn't wait to beat Hill, right? So we knew that this was an orchestrated attempt by the GOP to take Hill down. And it was all connected. And no one took a holistic view with that, because we're all so weird and icky about sex.
JJ: It's true. It's true. I find that part fascinating: The RedState reporter who published the photos was a campaign advisor for Republican congressman Steve Knight, who Hill unseated. And then after the pictures were up, RedState tweeted support for Mike Garcia, the Republican who's now running for Hill’s seat.
And as you say, I think it's interesting, because media are usually interested in partisan political skulduggery. But in this case, the tools that were used were too shiny an object for them to see past.
So they're comparing these pictures that were taken, as I understand it, without Katie Hill’s even knowledge, right, and certainly released without her consent, that's being compared to instances in which men sent unsolicited naked pictures to women. It's like, Naked stuff! It's all the same! We can't think about it, you know.
Mallory McMaster: "We all have stuff that lives on our phones and social media that could potentially have the same effect, if it's released in the way that Katie Hill’s information was released."
MM: Right. I actually did not realize that the photos had been taken without consent until I watched her heartbreaking resignation speech on the floor. And that made the situation even more heartbreaking, right? It's already horrible, and it's abuse: If you take photos consensually, you share them with your partner, you're supposed to be able to trust your spouse or your partner, or a friend or anyone else that promises to keep something private, and releases them without your consent.
But the fact that the photos were actually taken without her knowledge is horrifying. Hearing that Speaker Pelosi, behind closed doors, has chastised her for making the bad decision of being in the photos. She didn't even know she was in the photos, right? And Pelosi has made comments like, Well, I guess we have to teach kindergarteners not to take photos like that. And that's just so condescending and patronizing and rude and slut-shaming and victim-blaming, and we're moving in the wrong direction.
And it sends a message to potential and current candidates that, if you have anything in your background, like we all do, right, where you know, as a generation, millennials all have nude photos. We all have stuff that lives on our phones and social media that could potentially have the same effect, if it's released in the way that Katie Hill’s information was released.
It scares us. And it silences us. And it’s very useful in oppressing us. And the GOP clearly realized this, and this was a great test case to see how effectively a couple of photos could be used to silence women. And I think the Democrats gave them exactly what they wanted, which was a really easy tool to shut us up.
JJ: I don't even like the term “ revenge porn” very much, because I think “porn” sounds consensual. But nonconsensual pornography, image-based sexual abuse, it's a crime in 46 states, and yet Katie Hill’s pictures are still up on RedState, as Masha Gessen points out, still generating revenue.
And the New York Times can only bring itself to say that, while “most people would agree” that Hill is “clearly...in the wrong,” they say, “The publication of sensitive photos and texts, which she blamed on her estranged husband, arguably makes her a victim as well.” I have a real problem with that, but I want to bring you back to the scolding, because sometimes that scold is really explicitly spelled out.
"It Boils Down to This: Don't Pose Nude for the Camera.” That was the headline and the substance of this combo finger-wag and pearl-clutch from Gene Lyons, a columnist. And his line was, The husband, or whoever leaked the photos, is awful. The media who released them are awful. But the real blame is Katie Hill’s, because, what was she thinking?
And it's just what you said, whether or not she knew—to me, it's immaterial, even, whether she knew, although it absolutely adds a layer of horribleness to it, in her case—but in general, as you say, the idea that images of you might exist on social media. Here's Gene Lyons saying, “If that's your hobby, find a different profession.”
MM: That's disgusting.
JJ: It feels like such backlash. It feels like such fear of a new group of folks—and I don't think it's only generational, because you can be anti-sex and anti-difference and anti-whatever your mother and me don't understand, you know, at any age, but it does tell young people, “Public office isn't for you, standing in the public arena is not for you.”
And here's what I hate most—I know I'm talking a lot—but what bothers me most about that line is, it's often followed with, including in Lyons’ case: If Katie Hill had the courage of her convictions, she'd have stayed, she'd have stayed and fought. And the unspoken part is, She should have stayed to face both those people who openly despise her, and the likes of me, who are going to claim to support her, but actually not support her. It's a particular kind of hypocrisy, you know?
MM: Yeah. I was disappointed when I saw that Hill resigned from Congress. And I don't blame her for a second. When she disclosed during her resignation speech that she hadn't gotten out of bed that week, I could feel that. And she also disclosed that her abuser had also shared hundreds of other images, that they'd threatened to release slowly if she didn't resign from Congress.
It sounds like she's focusing full time on fighting the battle of her life, which is to fight back against her abuser. And I understand exactly why she wants to focus on that. And she has every right to.
So I think that we all need to take a good, long look in the mirror, and think about what we need to do differently moving forward, because this is sending a really strong message, not just to Hill, and not just to the GOP, but to young women and young people all over, who are expressing their sexuality in a way that makes us feel good, and a way that we have every right to, and we're being punished for it.
JJ: We don't know all the details of Katie Hill’s story, and that's sort of the point: Her accusers have told the story. And so maybe unsurprisingly, it's yet another time when I'm glad that there are independent media, where bisexuality isn't novel and strange, where women can be sexual and powerful without apology, and we can hear and tell stories that look more like our lives. The chance to have another kind of conversation on issues like this, or at times like this, seems to me especially crucial.
MM: Oh, absolutely. And I think that also the fact that we are missing those lives, or those experiences and those perspectives, in the mainstream media is exactly what led to this problem. And that's what Hill promised and ran on as her platform. She was openly bisexual and openly imperfect, and talked about that a lot. And millennials see that and appreciate it and need it. So we should be embracing and supporting our differences and our diversity and other perspectives and voices, instead of silencing them and shutting them out. But we have to fight like hell to lift them up, and create spaces that are safe for people to be themselves, and push them into the national media spotlight, because that's the only way we're going to create safe spaces for people to be themselves at every point in our lives and throughout the country.
JJ: We've been speaking with Mallory McMaster. You can find her article, “Katie Hill’s Resignation Should Have Been Met With Outrage, Not Silence,” on Rewire.News. Mallory McMaster, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
MM: Thanks for having me.
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