Hello my lovely readers! Happy International Women’s Day and pretty much…International Women’s week! In light of this honoring week, It’s time for me to weigh in on a hot button topic.
#metoo
My daughter says that every woman needs to bring her story, no matter how seemingly insignificant, if real change is to be affected. I am betting that every woman has one.
When I was about 8 or 9, my Grandmother gave me a small children’s book on the subject of “good touch vs. bad touch” and read it to me. The book told me that it is always important to find a safe adult if something in the “bad touch” department ever happens to you. In retrospect, I think it is remarkable that my sweet, depression-era Grandmother would take the time to make sure I understood this. She knew what went on in the world and she wanted to protect and empower me.
Good thing I had that book because, sure enough, my first #metoo moment came along when I was about 10. One Saturday in the summertime, my mom had dropped my brother and I and our two best friends off at a Charlie Brown matinee. Safety in numbers, I guess she figured. We lived in a very small town and everybody pretty much knew everybody. We crowded into a row, the three boys and then me next to an open seat. Once the movie started, I noticed this full grown man in a black leather jacket moving down our aisle towards me. He sat down in the seat beside me. I remember thinking that it was weird that he had such a big jacket on in the middle of the summer.
As the movie progressed, he let his hand hang over the armrest. I scooched over some in my seat to make room for his big arm. Then he let his hand slide down enough to where his fingertips were touching my right leg. I was wearing shorts and I felt it right away. I looked over at his hand, startled. He stared straight ahead like nothing was happening and I saw a great big gold ring on one of his fingers. In the moments that followed, he let his fingers slide down onto my leg and when his fingertips were groping into my shorts, I leaned over and whisper screamed into my friend Jason’s ear, “CHANGE SEATS WITH ME NOW!!!” Jason was a tad irritated with me but nonetheless, he switched with me. In retrospect, I could quite possibly have been offering Jason up to a wolf. It seems that this particular wolf preferred little girls and as soon as Jason switched with me, he got up and went to sit beside another little girl. I saw him sitting by yet another little girl in the back row when we left the theater. I didn’t tell the theater staff and I didn’t tell my mom for a week or so. I was brave enough to extract myself from the situation but I guess I wondered if anyone would believe me because it was so weird.
Fast forward to 15 years old and my first year of public school. My upbringing had been fairly safe and sheltered from any kind of weird sexual activity and I had never once encountered sexual harassment as a teenager. Turns out, my new high school’s culture was rife with harassment and I was unprepared. In my two years of public high school I twice had a guy put his hand up my skirt. I once had a guy put his hand on the zipper on the back of my skirt and pretend to undo it. I got cat-called “Fat Ass Thornberry” down the hallway and even had my sweats yanked down by a guy who thought it was so funny. This stuff was all super common for the culture there. Ask any girl who went to high school with me.
The thing is, my Grandmother had given me that book and my mom was no wallflower. The influential women in my life were strong. This wasn’t going to fly with me. In a culture where being “pantsed” was a risk you ran every time you wore sweats and boys with wandering hands were pretty much allowed to do as they pleased, I stood up. I turned in the guy who put his hand up my skirt and the guy who pulled my sweats down and they both were suspended. One of them later came to me, truly puzzled as to why I would take that kind of action. Prior to the “pantsy” guy receiving his suspension, the Principal pulled me out of typing class to ask me “exactly how far down did the pants had come” I looked him straight in the face and said, “Does it matter? He meant for them to come ALL the way down!” Even the Principal, my appointed protector at the school, wouldn’t stand on the premise that ANY attempt to pull someone’s pants down is sexual harassment! When I walked back into class from that little chat and told the girl sitting next to me what had happened, she announced it and every girl in the class applauded me. Had no one ever stood up to pantsing before??? It is an embarrassing fact to acknowledge that by standing up to what would have then been considered minor infractions, I had become an example to the girls in my school. They were just used to it.
As I got a little older, what I now know as harassment were then just a few uncomfortable moments to me. I had an upstanding, Christian, male friend say suuuuuper inappropriate things about what he imagined sex with me would be like, right to my face. What?! Was I supposed to say, “thank you???”
Another time, I came back from a rainy break at work at my telemarketing job and my supervisor asked me how “wet” I was with a wink and a snide grin. Ewwww. His creeper red moustache still makes me want to throw up in my mouth when I think of him.
Now I know, I have pretty much come through life as a woman unscathed. The closer I got to my girlfriends, the more I came to understand that, on the whole, 2 out of 3 of us were not just harassed like I was on a few occasions (with one near miss in the theater) but were molested, abused, harassed or raped at one or more points in their lives. 2 out of 3 of us. I’m the lucky one!!! I can’t even begin to imagine what kind of turmoil occurs in the hearts, minds, spirits and bodies of my friends who have been so overtly violated. It is a sickening reality to take in. When I make a new friend, I now know that the chances are probably 2 out of 3 that this insidious evil has been a part of her story. What mighty women these are, who battle for wholeness in the dark shadows of violation and evil. I know SO many of them and so do you.
When Alyssa Milano and her cohorts started hashtagging “ME TOO”, my initial thought was, “Oh man, THOSE girls DO need to stand up and blow the whistle.” But if we won’t put up with overt sexual violence and misconduct, will we STILL put up with the more “minor” infractions that I encountered in my own life? I say NO. These are all tentacles of the same ugly beast. The less we allow, on any level, the more ground we gain and the more our culture will be forced to change.
I am happy to report that what was a normal part of my high school’s sexual harassment culture would be much less tolerated today. Today, if a boss made a sexually implicit comment to me with a wink and weird smile, I would file an official complaint and take it as far as it would go He would likely be fired. If we won’t tolerate some of it, then we need not tolerate any of it. A little bit of evil is still evil.
So, I will be a flag thrower. I will be a stander-upper. I will be a part of the generation that turns the tide on what is considered evil. I will do it by considering seemingly little infractions as the toes of an evil beast. While marrying a child bride is still legal in some parts of the world, while rape is being declared a National Emergency in Sierra Leone, while more shocking #metoo stories are coming to light every day and my friends are fighting valiantly to push back fearful remnants of evil they never chose, I will consider every story important.
What is the #metoo story you have diminished because you considered it just a part of “being a woman?” What evil are you currently allowing to fly by in your life without throwing a flag, just because it seems insignificant in comparison to what someone else has gone through? You have to speak it! Say it here and say it wherever you need to. If you need help unearthing your pain, here is a great resource.
Enough is enough.
#youtoo
P.S. I wrote this post to honor women but I want to acknowledge the men in my life who have suffered sexual violence as well. Evil knows no bounds.
