“Also Me!”

The exposure of abhorrent male behavior by the courageous women of the “Me Too” movement has brought the abuse of women into the center of the national conversation. These transgressions and crimes perpetrated by men upon women which have long been known and subconsciously accepted in society, are now out in the light of day. The shame heaped upon the offenders is well deserved but all of us who have known of its existence but pretended we did not deserve our own helping of guilt for enabling its continuation by standing idle. If we all accept our appropriate level of culpability and partake in the healing of the damage done to all women, positive change can be achieved and sustained.

I was having dinner with my sisters, enjoying each others company and reminiscing about our childhood experiences, when the conversation suddenly turned dark as they began to recount some of their interactions with strange and horrible men. They told of men exposing their genitals to them, masturbating in front of them, rubbing against them on the bus and other physical assaults. I sat there, now a man, horrified and beyond the point of rage. I began to remember other stories recounted to me by women I have cared for and loved detailing all levels of abuse at the hands of men. As with the stories told to me by other women, I was so repulsed by my sister’s revelations I shut down to the emotional aspects of the events. Instead I retreated to a logical place of trying to understand how it occurred, if it could have been avoided, and how it could be prevented in the future. So in that more tenable state of emotional denial, I asked one of my sisters why she did not tell our mother and father about the men on the bus. She simply explained that she wanted to keep working at the diner and she knew that if she divulged these terrible experiences to our parents they would make her quit her job to avoid the bus ride home at night. My sister’s answer illuminated a reality about the world that to that very moment had somehow escaped me. Men live and work in a world that is for the most part not dangerous. If we avoid certain places and particular groups of people, our lives are relatively safe and worry free. Women, in order to exist and live must court danger at every turn. Peril is everywhere because men are everywhere. They must navigate the possibility of verbal and physical assault in all aspect of their lives. With this startling reality blinking in my head, I sat there silent and numb.

I remember as a child, when I would hurt myself, my parents would react in a way that appeared to be oblivious to my actual pain and suffering. Many times they seemed to distance themselves from me as if they were angry at me for getting injured. The conversation would center-around the recklessness of my behavior that had caused the need for stitches or crutches and have very little to do with providing me any comfort. It was not until I was older that I began to understand their reaction to my pain and the behavior they exhibited in response to it. They were so internally upset that I was in pain they could not cope with the pain itself. They focused on the cause of the pain and the prevention of future injury to somehow relieve themselves of the irrational guilt that their flawed parenting had been partially responsible for my accident. The recent exposure of abuse of women caused me to behave in an analogous way. The acts perpetrated by men and the pain it caused were too hard for me to deal with, so like my parents unable to cope with the nastiness of it all, I took refuge in the analysis of facts and the cold logic it supported.

The harsh reality of men abusing women has been dominating my thoughts for several months now. I have been able to move away from logic and have forced myself to take a very hard look at the pain and suffering women have endured at the hands of men. It has caused me to face the reality of my avoidance. I came to the realization that the thought of these assaults on women has given rise to a sense of personal guilt. There are two sources of my guilt. I have a level of guilt based on wonder. I think of all my interactions with women in my life and while I have never done anything that could be considered sexually assaultive, I have flirted and said suggestive things. In the light of my new clarity I now wonder how many times my words have caused a woman to feel uncomfortable. Like my parents, I have an irrationally based guilt, stemming from a retroactive sense of failure. As a brother, son and friend of many women I feel that somehow should have been there to stop those men who hurt them. I now know these feelings of guilt, rational or not, are the reasons for my inability to deal with the pain and the horrific nature of some of these events. Armed with this knowledge I am now capable of recognizing and sympathizing with the pain women have felt. I am now prepared to move forward and be part of a societal change, not as a diversion from what I cannot face but in support of a better world for women.

I believe that most men are good and decent people who respect women. I also know that men can be weak and succumb to even moderate levels of peer and group pressure. My experience has taught me that when groups of men do distasteful things it is usually the case that there are one or two morally flawed leaders with bad intentions and the rest of the men in the group follow this corrupt leadership down the destructive path because as individuals they lack the courage to break ranks. It is time for the good men to stand strong and lead. I would implore the predominantly good men of the world to look upon women as if they were their mother, sister, child, niece, wife or girlfriend; to protect all women with the same vigor they would those personally dear to them; to be able to summon the strength to confront any man, who in their presence or to their knowledge disrespects women in any way. As for myself, I can no longer turn a blind eye to the abuse of women because the thought of it emotionally disturbs me. It is not good enough for me to look in the mirror and release myself from my greater societal protective duty by saying, “I am a good man and I treat women well”. At the same time it does not serve any purpose for me to fantasize about going back in time and protecting my sisters from evil men on the bus. I must now rise and through my very public and demonstrative behavior try to impact a better future for all women. As these women declare “Me Too” in their courageous effort to expose abuse and give support to others suffering in their own personal hell, righteous men must stand, shoulder to shoulder with all women glaring into the face of those men active in and responsible for the abuse and say…”Also Me!”