Katie Hill said, in a speech on the floor of Congress, that one of the reasons she was resigning from the House was fear for her life. Celeste Sloman/Redux

On Monday afternoon, police and a hazardous-materials team were called to a Southern California office of the former congresswoman Katie Hill, after an envelope with white powder was delivered there. Tests showed that the powder did not contain harmful toxins, but the sheriff’s department has launched a criminal investigation. The Los Angeles Times reported that the amount of powder in the envelope was very small, apparently intended to make recipients suspect that it was anthrax. Some staffers reported irritation after coming into contact with the substance.

The mailing was a pure act of terror—that is, an act intended to terrify. But Hill, who resigned from the House last week amid allegations of improper sexual relationships with subordinates, was already terrified. In her final speech, on the floor of Congress, she called out the double standard that would force a woman like her to resign while a man credibly accused of multiple acts of sexual assault continues to occupy the White House. But it was also a speech about fear.

Hill, who is thirty-two, served just ten months in office, after unseating a Republican incumbent. She resigned after the right-wing Web site RedState, and later the British tabloid the Daily Mail, published intimate photos of her with a female former campaign staffer, with whom both Hill and her estranged husband had apparently had a relationship. Hill alleged that her husband, Kenny Heslep, released the photos, and also numerous private texts, to the media. (Heslep’s father told BuzzFeed that Heslep had said his computer was hacked.) The House Ethics Committee also said that it would investigate allegations that Hill had been involved with a male member of her congressional staff, although Hill denies it. (Heslep made this second allegation in a Facebook post that he has since deleted.)

In her farewell speech, Hill said, “I am leaving because of the thousands of vile, threatening e-mails, calls, and texts that made me fear for my life and the lives of the people that I care about. Today is the first time I’ve left my apartment since the photos taken without my consent were released, and I’m scared.”

This was an extraordinary moment. A woman—prominent, articulate, still powerful enough to command a national audience, even though she had just given up her congressional seat—stood on the floor of Congress and said that she feared for her life, and that this was one of the reasons she was leaving her job. She cited other reasons, too. She said that she didn’t want any congressional investigation into her own conduct to overshadow the investigation that really matters: the one into President Trump’s behavior in office. This was fairly standard fare. When Al Franken gave up his Senate seat, he mostly denied the allegations that brought him down; instead, he claimed to be resigning because his ability to do his job had been impaired. Like Hill, he sounded both defiant and heartbroken. Unlike Hill, he didn’t sound scared. Public humiliation, unevenly applied standards, and wrenching choices are among the consequences of being accused of sexual misconduct in the #MeToo era. Terror is reserved for the women.

Hill pointed to the sources of this terror in her speech: “The forces of revenge by a bitter, jealous man, cyber exploitation and sexual shaming that target our gender, and a large segment of society that fears and hates powerful women.” She was saying that the husband whom she is in the process of divorcing unleashed a revenge-porn attack. Revenge porn, unlike a consensual relationship with a subordinate, is a criminal offense in forty-six states—in California, a conviction can lead to as many as six months in jail. In this case, the offense has gone unpunished. The private photos and texts are still up on the RedState and Daily Mail Web sites, attracting traffic and advertising revenue. Revenge porn is an act of violence that hurts its victims in many of the same ways that sexual assault does. It is also an act that finds easy accomplices, from the people who decided to publish those photographs to whoever sent the white powder to Hill’s office on Monday.