Me Too Part Nine

So here it is another Monday, and the weekly cycle begins again.  I know how things work these days, and a new week brings new shock and outrage and new stories to command our attention.  That’s why I took the opportunity last week to post about sexual harassment and abuse every chance I got. This week it is pushed to the back of the line, and we all succumb to our short attention spans.  Soon, we will forget about Harvey Weinstein, and all the buzz it created and the other people it exposed.  We elected a sexual predator president, why would anyone think that what some producer in Hollywood did would occupy our thoughts for that long?

But we shouldn’t let it go.  We shouldn’t stop talking about it.  We shouldn’t let a whole movement lose momentum just because we had a couple of days off and there are no big sensational headlines to draw our attention back to it. That’s what will happen, though.

We can’t control the news media or the national dialog.  We don’t have a pulpit, or hold office.  We can only do what we can.  We can continue to use social media to keep the discussion going.  We can petition, and get our elected officials involved, and try to strengthen the laws and punishments for abuse and harassment and violence.  Everyone is spread so thin these days, with so many pressing needs, so I’m not sure how much time and energy is left over to devote to this.  There are people fighting for justice everyday though, so we can help out when we can.

Ultimately, the thing all of us can do is try to keep our eyes open.  Not just for bad behavior of others.  We need to examine ourselves and see if we are helping or hurting the situation. There have been plenty of times in my life where I have responded or acted in a way that didn’t help anything.  We have to learn, and to learn we need to be open to learning in the first place.  We can all do better, all of us.  

We also need to keep our eyes open when it comes to being there for women in these situations.   Often they cannot be open about what they are dealing with, either because someone is stopping or threatening them, or because they don’t feel comfortable.  It is all of our jobs to make the people we care about feel safe and comfortable around us.  We need to be supportive, and not just dismiss what they say about their lives and situations. We need to be receptive to any signs that there might be a problem.

We need to speak out when we encounter something wrong.  We need to stop accepting unacceptable behavior and making excuses for it.  We need to teach our children about respect and understanding and empathy.

All of these things are things we can do, without help from celebrities or politicians or activists or foundations, or even people like me that just annoy you on your Facebook page about it.  We can do it ourselves because it is the right thing to do.  For women. For men. For our children.  

For the entire human race.