People are tired of #MeToo and feel it’s gone too far. The movement has enabled women to share experiences but it’s just too much. People don’t want to hear about this any more. Some experiences are not even considered that bad. A bad date is not the same as sexual assault. And a comment about what a women looks like is not the same as showing someone your penis or patting her ass. And why can’t women just say no or walk away or close their legs anyway? It seems as though women have taken it upon themselves to call out men, in the process public shaming them and ruining their careers and reputations, instead of leaving it up to the courts. Powerful men are falling from their towers and we can barely keep up with ever new accusation. Surely this is an exaggeration and it’s all too much. Women seem to be taking advantage of this newfound power of social media without regard to the consequences of their actions. People are now worried about their past actions and whether they will come back to haunt them. One women of 2 small boys spoke on CBC about being worried that her boys could do something as teenagers and then be punished later as adults for something they did when acceptable behaviour was different.
Clearly MeToo has gone far.
But this is hardly far enough… and it’s only the beginning so we ALL better get used to this new standard.
Let’s summarize some of what women have experienced simply because we are women as a way of understanding the motivation to keep MeToo alive:
Women get paid less
Women have less ability to move up in the corporate world or academia
Women have fewer opportunities for sports careers
Women experience WAY more sexual harassment in the workplace than men
Women and girls are raped more than men
Girls are molested more than boys
Women experience more domestic violence than men
Women’s bodies are exploited in the media more than men’s
Women and girls are trafficked for sex more than men
Women who are public figures get death threats and rape threats more than men
Women are more afraid to walk home alone OR get into a cab with a male driver than men
Women make more safety plans when going out on a blind date or needing to have a service call into their homes
Women are more cautious alone in the elevators with a man
Women’s qualities on a resume are less impressive than the same qualities listed on a resume for men
Different words are used to describe women in reference letters than men
Different words are used to describe girl infants than boy infants
People talk differently to babies they think are girls compared to boys
Women who are assertive as less liked than men who are assertive
Women are judged for their clothes more than men
Pre-pubescent girls’ clothes have less fabric than boys' clothes
Women are still excluded with language like “he”
Should I go on? I could… but that’s not the point. This is an example of SOME of what it is like to be a woman in North America in this century. So to say that #MeToo has gone too far absolutely does not capture the distance we have yet to go. So I warn those who think it’s gone to far or those who have had enough of MeToo to sit back, get uncomfortable, and prepare for the new future that is before us. This is what’s happening…
We are strong… stronger than you think. Imagine what we women have endured in our own lifetime and by virtue of the lifetimes of women living in our DNA. Just imagine the skills we have built during this time to still be on this earth having sat pretty waiting for this time.
We are a collective… now more than ever before we have a technology in all the social media platforms that exist to enable us to share our experiences with each other, with the unaware, and with those who have wronged us, and in the process validating, through the power of numbers, for the first time ever, these experiences at a grand scale.
We are healers… we have deep abilities to feel pain (our brains and bodies are wired for childbirth) and heal right after that. In an instant we go from pain to love.
We are lovers… we aren’t doing this to hurt anyone… actually the complete opposite. We want equality and justice for all. We have love in our DNA that goes back as long as we have existed. We love even when love isn’t reciprocated.
So others can be worried or can discount this movement but we will still move on. Change is happening as we move toward the equality and justice that we deserve, which is long overdue. And in the process we will be strong, together, heal, and love and be the example the world needs right now as we shift into this new state of being.
Welcome to the future.