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Abstract

This Article proceeds in eight Parts. Part I narrates my path to “academic feminism” and the legal academy. In the tradition of feminist scholars before me, I set forth the personal to provide the background for the socio-legal-political views that inform this Article...Part II explains the need for broader perspectives and approaches to legal scholarship. It is important for the legal academy to recognize that, just like the legal market is calling for changes, we have to stop silencing the development of scholarship andperspectives that can bring forth the change we need. The academy has already benefited from the work of pioneers...Part III documents one woman’s story, Iman al-Obeidi’s, an attorney from Libya who risked her life to tell her story of surviving gang rape at the hands of Muammar Gaddafi’s men...Part IV introduces how professional and workplace norms silence professional women in the United States...Part V illustrates through Anita Hill’s story how professional and workplace norms silence professional women, in her case the unwritten rules of the legal profession. The Anita―Speaking Truth to Power film will introduce new generations of men and women to the events surrounding Professor Hill’s testimony during the confirmation hearings of now U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. This Part provides some reasoning behind the decisions that Hill made when she was a lawyer, a couple of years out of law school, and as she testified about sexual harassment in the workplace. It explains why professional women, especially lawyers, often remain silent. Part VI presents additional considerations that silence women of color when we are abused, discriminated, and harassed by men of color in professional settings...Part VII analyzes why professional women generally do not file lawsuits after our rights are violated in the workplace. Many employers, employers’ lawyers, and employees’ lawyers are well informed about the dismal odds against an employee winning a case for violations of federal employment laws in the federal courts...Part VIII sets forth my proposal. I call on individuals to make a conscious effort to support equality in the workplace and suggest that individual actions can make a difference. We should not wait for a national workplace movement to further the cause of equality. Through our daily deeds, we can either support equality or sabotage it. We can certainly make a difference in our particular workplaces and in the lives of our colleagues, especially the most vulnerable ones, the ones under attack. We must act

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