Not ALL men do it. #metoo

An answer to a man hurt and disoriented by women speaking up about the sexual assault they endured.

He posted “All males are currently guilty until proven innocent.”

My response, written with a gentle tone of voice:

Not so. 99.9% of the men I know I feel would never say or do anything in the likes of what these men have been accused of.

I’ve been sexually attacked (raped) and harassed (different men, different circumstances). I never spoke up about about those incidents because women know a) we won’t be believed and b) the emotional fallout afterwards makes a bad situation worse.

What’s the emotional fallout women have experienced?

Being told we deserved it. Being told we asked for it. If we’re good looking, being told that the man couldn’t help himself. Being told all men do it and to just put up with it.

The truth is ALL men DONT do it.

However, the psychological effect of women having to accept that sort of behavior as “normal” and having to stay silent and suffer in silence because we can’t speak of it and “ruin a man’s life” is that it ruins a woman’s life. We KNOW that we won’t be believed or supported.

Women are finding freedom in finally speaking of what they have had to endure silently for years. By a few women speaking up others have found courage to come forward. They problem of sexual assault and abuse is far more widespread than we like to acknowledge.

It’s difficult I suppose for decent men to realize that women they love and care for have had to endure this silently as “part of being a woman” but it has been a fact of life for us all along.

The problem is that there are a few perpetrators and they have many victims. Their victims stayed silent because the pain of not being believed or worse, being labeled and blamed for what the man did, as being HER fault and not his, was a worse prospect than what was done.

Women have seen other women who have come forward who have been publicly humiliated and crushed. The message we’ve taken to heart was “if you speak up, this will happen to you too”.

What is happening now with women speaking up must be very scary for the decent men who would never do such things and who feel very protective towards women.

Please be assured (name of man I was addressing) that most women are able to see that most men wouldn’t do these things.

However, most women I know HAVE been sexually attacked or abused by the few men who DO those things and those women, like me have also stayed silent over the years.

In my circle of friends and family, MOST of the women I know have experienced these things. Not just catcalls or groping. But rape. Attempted rape which left them wounded.

I’m sure it’s very disorienting for decent men to realize that this has been going on for millennia and was considered a normal part of being a woman. However, many women are now realizing that maybe, just maybe we no longer need to accept it and stay silent. Maybe things can change.

For change to occur we need to see the scope of the problem and unfortunately, that’s the stage we’re at right now. Women are finding their voices and speaking up.

We’re no longer feeling we need to keep those dark secrets and give THOSE men a free pass to continue doing what they’ve done, without consequences to them.

So what you’re seeing is women wanting to hold THOSE men accountable.

I’m sharing this in the hopes that the decent men won’t feel attacked or feel defensive but instead can become allies in helping us as a society not accept the unacceptable.

The behavior of a FEW men is NOT indicative of all men and shouldn’t be accepted as such!

#metoo