Me too

I'm compelled to continue with growing awareness of what it means to be on the receiving end of harassment. In the last 48 hours, a #Metoo campaign has grown on Facebook. It encourages women to post an update of Me too if they have been the victim of sexual harassment, abuse or assaulted. As the number of post updates have grown, it forces me to recall all the different experiences of unwanted sexual advances or harassment that I've experienced from a very young age.

I remember in a school production of Hansel and Gretel, my classmate who was playing the witch asked me to stay with her. I was a make-up assistant, so it wasn't unreasonable that I was with her. She was uncomfortable with the adult director. I don't recall asking why because I knew why she asked. However, I don't recall ever telling anyone. Not even my parents. I don't recall if anyone spoke further of it.

I've written about this before on Facebook. How much I dislike the phrase, boys will be boys. This is how this behavior is accepted and how we're setting up future generations to continue perpetuating unacceptable behavior as a fact of life. We need to do better. I shared a story about a period of time that occurred during elementary school. A boy would follow me around the playground and harass me. School playground attendants called it "teasing". He's just trying to get your attention. I didn't like it. I started carrying a purse and would hit him if he got to close. I served lunch detention for hitting him. Yup. I was the one in the wrong. He started following me home. I wouldn't go home because I didn't want him to know where I lived so I would walk around the block. I lived across the street, so this exercise was ridiculous because I would walk an extra 15/20 minutes before he grew tired.

One day it all ended. He secured my home number and called during dinner. My face must have dropped when I heard his voice. My Father took the phone and asked who it was, and he stupidly said something vulgar to my Father. I never saw that boy again. It was not the harassment that got him expelled, it was a threat of a lawsuit because it was determined that the school failed to protect my information because he found my number from school papers.

It was my Father who stood up for me. It was my Father, who in that moment confirmed and validated my feelings. It was a defining moment of my life because it gave me the strength to always trust my instinct. Also, it showed me that boys being boys isn't okay. I wasn't raised with those limitations, not by Father. He dragged me to baseball and football games. He took me to car races. He taught me to drive a stick, because every girl should know how in case they find themselves on a 'bad date'. He taught me basics about a car, so I wasn't taken advantage of. I wasn't going to be defined by my gender nor should I allow anyone else to do so.

These were incidents that could be explained away like they never existed, but I have always remembered them even though the faces and names have faded from memory. Their impression left a permanent mark.

The latter gave me the courage to say no in the future, but it didn't protect me from the more overt sexual harassing situations from occurring. The perverts (yes, more than once) stopping to ask for directions, only to be masturbating in their car. Sitting at Denny's to have a flasher outside the window. The latter may sound funny, but it's just a matter of life when you're a woman.Walking to work, who doesn't cringe at construction workers? It is like I suffer PTSD every time I see one. Head down, walk straight ahead as quickly as possible. I don't even like jogging in public, because when I was younger, I grew uncomfortable with being honked and yelled at. The drunken guys grabbing you at an event or bar. Once during a work function I had a much older labor leader try to give me his hotel room key. Something that is a matter of life if you are girl.

I saw Prime Minister Trudeau during a press conference refer to being a feminist. Watch it here. Mr. Trudeau has proclaimed this before. Last year he said similar things during announcing his cabinet.
We should all be feminists. It is something that continues to pop up. Dior made the shirt last year and donated funds to charity, but it needs to be more than a slogan. It needs to be incorporated into every day life.
I've started by raising a son who treats all people with respect, empathy and compassion. Who will not see girls as less but different, but not because of her gender rather all the other parts that make her an individual.