Former California Rep. Katie Hill will not be silenced, despite a year of scandal and controversy that ultimately chased her out of Congress. After nude photos of the former California Representative were published online without her consent, Hill was investigated for a relationship with a former campaign aide, eventually resigning from her post. She didn’t go quietly though: Katie Hill’s viral resignation speech called out revenge porn and the sexist double standard faced by women in politics. “I’m stepping down, but I refuse to let this experience scare off other women who dare to take risks, who dare to step into this light, who dare to be powerful,” she said.
Now, Hill says she is fighting for progressive representation in the media —first, in politics, and now as a writer. This week, she announced her new upcoming memoir, She Will Rise, which is scheduled to be released on August 19, 2020. The date of her book release is also a monumental one for women in the U.S.: it’s the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment which gave women the right to vote.
She Will Rise is part memoir, part map toward gender-equality. In her book, Hill will revisit the turbulent year that led to her resignation. It is meant to recount, but it also meant to inspire women and let women know that they can own their mistakes and still move on to bigger and better things, Hill told the New York Times. “It would be much easier for me to just disappear, but I’m not, and this is an act of defiance, staying in the forefront,” Hill said. “You can’t let other people take away your power or your voice, even when it’s hard.”
Since leaving office in October 2019, Hill set her sights on getting more women in office. At a MAKERS conference in Los Angeles, she announced her new coalition dedicated to supporting young women interested in a career in politics called HER Time, reports Elle. The organization offers financial resources and mentorship to promising candidates, not unlike the women who stood behind her through her controversial freshman year.
HER Time will also guide candidates through the process of running for office for the first time. “I made a mistake,” she told Elle. “[In politics], you are going to be exposed in ways that you can’t even imagine, sometimes quite literally. The more powerful you are and the higher you rise, the more at risk you are, and that’s just a reality. But if showing that what happened to me didn’t destroy me can make it a little bit easier for somebody else to consider running, then I want that to be possible.”
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