W ho doesn’t have those lecherous acquaintances, swingers within the family, philander work collogues or just an unwelcome someone introducing a woman to the sexual exploits through her adolescent years to where she is today? Well, that marks a serious infraction of the moral order, not to have been ever taken in a stride- it’s simple, it’s loud and it’s clear.
So, this is it now- the ‘Me Too’ Outcry, a hashtag #MeToo movement, that encourages women to speak about sexual harassment and abuse. I am a woman, and I could’ve been one of those zillion others who’ve been taken through those rough assault trips. But I’m writing this.
The movement to connect women is contagious, but I’m not moved. There’s something strangely unagreeable here. I wonder, and I very seriously do- why did most of those carrying the ‘Me Too’ banner not speak up at the time of the assault, especially when many of the claimed victims are celebrities or empowered women with a voice? And did their victimization continue despite their staging a protest with the victimizer? Or, did they even explicitly present to the abuser their resistance to the sexual overture?
While this women’s drive is a good whip at whacking the culpable and at serving as a moral restraint, the silence-breakers’ drive seems to be ball-rolling into an ugly noise-making swirl. With each passing day, new faces are shoring up in screaming headlines and viral social media trolls. Public naming and shaming of big-wigs are either yielding a surrendering apology or flexing the legal muscles for putting up a good firefight.
The #MeToo rage that’s to be perceived like some patriotic rouse, seems like a plum opportunity for some feminists to beat the rap. While there is a sprawling show of advocates driven by survivors, international dialogue, viral hashtags, a torrent of allegations and an overnight online tidal wave, there also could be, and there would be, many of those tragically lumped in there with the sexual abusers.
Seriously, just before you begin to checkmark the list of a Me-Too-Survivor, look into the gray areas that exist between a man-woman relationship. There’s a fine line between flirting and molestation, between asking for it and not asking for it, between opportunistic nonresistance and a stiff resistance, and between consent or complicity and denial.
#MeToo is not a fad or a device for ensnaring men, and many of you need to think over how much ‘you too’ were a part of what now seems like an afterthought abuse distress, just before you too consider slapping someone with a ‘#Me Too’.