Are you the 99% or the 50%?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say what I'm sure 99% of women have been thinking for the past 2 months.  If you have not been treated improperly, sexually harassed, been hassled with off color, sexist jokes, had your behind pinched by someone you don't have a relationship with, been pulled into a "hug" that made you feel WAY uncomfortable, had someone put their hands on you when you did not ask for them to nor want them to, you are not a woman.  This stuff, while the center of attention now, has been going on for hundreds of years.  Women have dealt with it for so long, it has become 'normalized'.

Men have always been more powerful and some have held that power over women ---for increases in grades, pay, jobs, etc. 

Then you get the people that read and watch things like 50 Shades of Grey...which is EXACTLY the same thing that is being reported and these people are being fired for.  And still they make more money on the premise that it's fiction and purely entertainment.  NO. You cannot have it both ways.

If you are assaulted--genuinely sexually assaulted, raped, hurt, threatened--YOU have the right to be angry, hurt and outraged.  YOU have the right to fight back.

What I have a problem with is the propensity to "recall" something that happened 20 years ago, something that did not even register on the radar at the time, but now given the hostility of the world we live in, you think you were sexually harassed. 

Hear what I am saying.  It is ALL WRONG.  Nobody has the right to touch you when you don't want them to.  But if we are going to call to the carpet every man who has ever cat-called, pinched, told a dirty joke in mixed company, well we are going to be saying goodbye to at least 50% of our male population. 

Instead of talking about it, TEACH YOUR SONS to respect women.  Teach them that every woman they love; Grandma, Nana, Mama, Sissy, Aunt Harriet and cousin Jodi are all women who deserve respect.  Maybe, just maybe one day our sons and grandsons will be the change that this country needs.  If we don't teach them how to behave, who do you think they are learning from?  Those exact television shows and movies that those higher ups are being fired from.  And that's something I'm not willing to leave to chance.

Marybeth