The “#Me too” movement has been sobering for me as I watched many of my female friends, former colleagues, and family members use social media to speak out about their own experiences of sexual harassment, assault, or rape. Those two simple words, “Me too,” have revealed how pervasive the problem is in every institution and in every corner of our society. The problem has been there all along, but we have generally ignored it. By “we” I mean men like me.
We have been willing to turn our heads when sexual harassment or assault made headlines. We shook our heads in sad disbelief as Bill Cosby denied charges brought by more than a dozen women. Then, when it was no longer front-page news, we stopped thinking about it. We chuckled when our soon-to-be president bragged in disgusting detail about his own inappropriate sexual behavior. Many glibly chalked it up to locker room talk and voted for him anyway.
It took a Harvey Weinstein to finally create momentum as more than two dozen women, many of whom we have admired in their movie roles, spoke up about his predatory sexual behavior over the past 20 years. Once the women Weinstein had targeted started coming forward, others did the same. The “Me too” campaign took flight and allegations and reports came from every direction; against bosses, co-workers, CEOs, neighbors, everywhere.
Now we as a culture, and particularly we as men, have an important decision. We can take this seriously or we can forget about it as soon as it’s no longer on the evening news. Weinstein is an easy target for our outrage. He is from Hollywood. Those who want to dismiss the issue can say, “Well, it’s Hollywood. What do you expect?” Those who want to use it for political or religious ammunition can say, “That’s the Hollywood elite. We’re not like that.” We can all find some way to dismiss this social epidemic that affects us all.
The hard part will be to continue to recognize it, stand up to it, call it what it is, or simply stop doing it. The temptation will be to dismiss the reality that sexual harassment and assault take place in every institution in our country. It happens in businesses large and small, local and global; in churches large and small; in the halls of local, state, and national government; in civic groups, in families.
Sexual harassment happens in the workplace, but it also happens in the grocery store, in the hallways at school, during staff meetings, while having coffee with friends. Anywhere and anytime an unwelcomed behavior, statement, or gesture of a sexual nature is made, it has happened again. Someone has been demeaned because of her gender and we have all been diminished because of it still plays such a prominent role in our culture.
The simplest way to dismiss this reality is to diminish its importance by assuming that every woman who has ever felt slighted is now claiming sexual harassment. We roll our eyes and rationalize that this is the latest form of whining and blaming. I have already heard that argument. This heaps insult on top of tragedy.
If we (men) are going to err, let’s err on the side of believing women. Let’s err on the side of assuming we don’t understand and we need to learn some things. Let’s err on the side of assuming it happens all around us, even to the women we love and respect, and we don’t see it. Let’s err on the side of taking responsibility for ourselves, that whenever we say, “Oh, you know I didn’t mean it that way,” or some such thing, we might be the part of the problem. Let’s err on the side of learning more about what constitutes sexual harassment, and then call it when we see it.
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