#metoo

This is not a post I'd normally write, but as the news of disasters and devastations are being compounded with awful stories of sexual assault, I'm so saddened to know that some of the heartache in the news was due to people's own choices in the way they treat others. So this is a rant (and not my most eloquent writing)--I'll start you off with that fair warning--but it's a rant I think is worth sharing to continue to bring attention to a problem that needs to be addressed, and perhaps even help someone in feeling they are not alone in their experience.

I remember seeing all those #metoo posts on Facebook and having to look up what was going on. I did not participate, but agreed with the goal: to draw attention to a problem. It's a problem that requires an army to speak out if we are to draw attention to it, because it is all too commonplace. We've come to actually expect it, much less recognize it as a problem. But it's truly a problem when we look at the frequency of women (or men, although I will use a masculine pronoun in this post for the sake of simplicity) being treated as sexual objects and experiencing inappropriate behavior of others. Particularly from others in power. Maybe not a lot of power, but the important thing is that he has just a little more power than I do. That's the only setup you need for #metoo hashtags to start multiplying like rabbits in such an environment.

If I'm going to join a movement, I'll do it purposefully and with full explanation. So, here are the specific reasons I didn't post #metoo on my Facebook account but saw it more fitting to share in a form that allows me to more fully share a few experiences.

1. I don't know where the line is drawn. No one has done anything to me that they were required to go to jail over, but does it have to be that extreme? Does #metoo count for every unsolicited d**k pic I've received? Or does it kick in at the second d**k pic, after I've already clearly responded that wasn't okay?

After the second one, I'm going to block you. Which makes me feel kind of like a jerk, but then I have to wonder how in the world that feeling has come about. How am I the jerk in this scenario? I should be able to block your number the first time and not feel guilty at all about it, but I give you a second chance, because I want to see the good in you, and maybe you just genuinely misread the tone of our conversation.

It's really unfortunate that I had to think through the scenario in that much detail before realizing that it absolutely qualifies as sexual harassment. Even the first time. And it's unfortunate that as I write this now, after the fact, I sit here contemplating whether or not to "hide" this blog post from people who I know have done this for fear of people feeling unjustly accused and perhaps ending a friendship with me for mentioning this (in a blog of my personal life that was initially created really just to keep in touch with my family).

2. When I explain the above, I can't help but wonder who is reading this. Will my parents read that and be sickened that these guys are trying to get their baby to look at pictures of penises (multiple)? Don't worry, Mom. I delete them immediately while covering the rest of my screen with my other hand. I've got a system down. But should I have to have a system? Really? On my personal phone that I rely on multiple times a day?

I also think, I'm still trying to be in the dating scene. If I post a #metoo over a not-so-severe incident, are the prospective suitors who are linked to me on social media going to be turned off because I'm obviously too uptight and might complain about the things they say to me? Although really all I am asking for is respect from the guys who claim they are interested in getting to know the real me. The real me has about a gazillion more layers than some of these guys will ever notice, but sexual harassment isn't about the Harassed at all. It's about the Harasser. Which leads me to Point 3....

3. My stories shouldn't be that bad. I mean, I've got a BMI that a large percentage of the male population considers as reducing my desirability, so I really shouldn't have that much trouble. This should be a perk of being someone who seems to be lower in the pecking order--I should get a pass on the harassment. You'd think I would naturally have this experience with less frequency because my appearance would weed out any guys who are not attracted to girls of my particular size and number of chins. But it doesn't seem to go down like that either. In fact, I've mostly noticed that it's often been worked back into an insult power-play to round out the full sexual harassment experience. For example, I once politely turned down a guy who had come at me very aggressively with a sexual tone I was not comfortable with. When I said I didn't think we needed to talk anymore, his reply was, "Well I like skinny girls anyway." So you limit your dating pool to skinny girls, but your harassment pool you've so generously expanded to include the rest of us, too? How modern and inclusive. You're telling me I'm undesirable, but I still get to help you feel sexually entitled and superior.

So, harassment is about power. The Harasser feels entitled because he believes himself to have some sort of power that only has to be perceived as just the smallest sliver more than that of the Harassed. Take my one day in Hollywood show biz, for example. I thought it would be fun to be an extra on a TV show, so I said yes to an invitation to do so. Wardrobe chose to put me in something a bit bustier than I would normally wear (by no means vulgar, though it would be beside the point, regardless). When the extras-wrangler--I don't know if there was anything else to his job beyond that; I'm pretty sure his job description would have been laughable to anyone else in the industry, but he did have power over the extras--caught sight of my bust, suddenly he stopped wrangling me and started schmoozing me, while suddenly more intensely wrangling the rest of the paid background actors (many dignified people who do background acting as a full-time profession, I might add) with excessive pigheadedness. You know, to show me how powerful he was. And if I recognize that power, then I will only rationally conclude that he has power to treat me as a sexual object, right? Mmm, I'm actually going to go with *no*.

We give men power by constantly excusing them for being so sexually driven. We laugh off comments or advances because "he's just thinking with his pants again." So we excuse a man when he acts as a person with a one-track mind and say he just can't help himself. By giving him that excuse, let's then think logically about what we're telling him he must do to have the power he is told to desire, when we continue to feed him the rhetoric that he only has a one-track mind: treat women like they have a zero-track mind. See women as objects--because that's what zero mind would imply.

I know some will not share their #metoo stories. Those are not our stories to tell, nor our right to  interpret how the experience impacted (or should have impacted or should not have impacted) those involved, and they have every right in the world to tell or not tell such stories for any number of reasons. It is not anyone's place to judge if someone else "speaking out" is the right or wrong thing in any given instance. A real and valid consideration of someone who doesn't speak out may be because she understands that this is just one facet of these men's multi-layered, complicated lives (in reality, not someone who exists with a single "track" or purpose), and a sexual assault accusation has the potential to affect all the other parts of his life--losing a job, ruining a reputation, destroying a marriage, or even going to jail. I am not implying that it is a wrong decision for her to consider this, but I am saying let's look at the irony of this predicament: the woman who is having this very real internal conflict, weighing whether her typing a simple #metoo hashtag is more helpful or hurtful, was being treated as though her existence is not complex or nuanced at all, but rather as though her existence has the singular purpose of looking desirable and fulfilling someone else's hunger for power.

So if we narrow #metoo statements to those that actually broke a law, I don't need to join. But if we consider it to include all the millions of versions of this that are done every single day, well, then I still don't need to write #metoo, because it's superfluous; if we take that definition, we can safely assume that every woman is included and no hashtags are required. And that's why I never #metoo-ed.