As the #metoo movement continues to roil the American
landscape, males are seeing the world as we have known it changing before our
eyes. Men who believed themselves to be
evolved have stepped on their own tongues with statements that inadvertently endorsed
the patriarchal society that we live in.
Women were quick to condemn such statements, pointing out the fortress
of male privilege that has sheltered us from the day we were born, lottery
winners for simply being born white and male in America.
As a result, a lot of men are staying on the
sidelines, afraid to say or do the wrong thing.
“I’m just working on ‘me’ right now,” they seem to be saying. “I’m not really looking for a movement right
now.” I’m not just referring to some fictional
other…I’m afraid to write about it. I’ve
never been afraid to write about anything.
I initiated conversations with different women of different ages,
classes and family situations, trying to educate myself. “I’m going to write about it,” I insisted to
my friend Marlena.
“You’re gonna get killed,” she declared flatly.
I insisted she was wrong. Yet these are the first words I’ve published
about #metoo after all these months and I see myself at this time as more of a
reporter.
Marlena often feels like SHE is standing on the
sidelines of the struggle. She finds it
frustrating having others who share the same goals telling her how and where
she should protest. How loud and how
high and how long, and aren’t we (as women) doing to EACH OTHER one of the very
things we are accusing the men of doing?
So she sees herself as being in the reserves. She is not on the front lines but will
respond to the bugle’s call. She told me
recently about being called up for duty.
It happened at one of the grand old theatres, during
the intermission of a play. The restrooms
were jammed with people, though the men’s lines moved much quicker in and out
of the swinging doors. Calculating a
shorter line on another floor, Marlena took a chance on a lower floor, and then
the basement level, finding only an even longer line, filled with other women
who had, like her, gambled and lost. The
other floors were now out of the question.
It would be the basement or nothing.
Waiting behind the other impatient, disgruntled theatregoers,
one of the women in back said, “Look at that.”
All heads swiveled to the men’s room across the basement, where there
wasn’t a soul in sight. The Instigator
said, “I’ll bet there’s not even anybody in there.” Then she followed with “I’m going to go see
if there’s anybody in there.” She strode
across the basement lobby and peered inside the restroom door. She turned around and shouted to the other
women, “There’s two guys at the urinals.
I’m goin’ in!” She wasn’t alone
for long. Three other women…and Marlena…got
out of line for the ladies room and went to infiltrate the male domain.
“We all go rushin’ in there,” Marlena told me, “and
one-by-one they ran into those stalls and locked the door. SLAM-CLICK, SLAM-CLICK, SLAM-CLICK, SLAM-CLICK…and
suddenly it occurs to me that we are going to be one stall short, and that
someone is me.”
No one chooses to be a part of that moment. That moment chooses you. It is your fate calling and asking, how will
you respond? I suppose you’re wondering
about Marlena…
“Well, have you ever seen a bird caught in the house?”
she asked. “I was trying to fly this way
or that way, and there were these two guys at the urinals and they were SCARED
and then I couldn’t figure out where the door was…”
By this time, more women had abandoned the line
outside the ladies room to join the resistance. Seeing that there were no more stalls, they all
retreated from the men’s room to wait until the remaining men had departed. The men did appear in short order. They were a little freaked out, which seems
understandable. But the women didn’t
back down, either. They stood up straight and they held their chins high as the
men returned to their seats and the women took over the restroom in its entirety.
No one summoned an usher or called a
cop. The battle was over without a
single shot being fired. Still, Marlena
was invigorated by the action. “I was at
the revolution,” she said, “but I still had to wait.”
Which might be as good a report as I can make at this
time. Gains are made every day by women
who are no longer going to accept the status quo under any circumstances. They are doing it themselves. Sometimes, they are going to have to
wait. But they are not going to wait
long or suffer in silence at all.
Let’s face it, boys, they’re smarter than us in any practical
way I can think of, they’re tougher than we give them credit for, they are the
only ones that can create life and, for goodness sake, they even LIVE
longer. They are not going to back down
because they don’t want to and they don’t have to.
So in addition to ‘working on ourselves’, we should
really be engaging with the women in our lives and becoming more familiar with
what they are seeing and hearing from us.
We need to celebrate their successes. We have to call our buddies on
their bullshit because it’s not funny and it’s not okay. Not because we love women or because they’re
pretty but because it is the right thing to do.
Male or female, someday, someone may ask, “What did
YOU do during the #metoo movement?” What will you say? Your answer may be very important. As many of us are already aware, there’s
nothing worse than hearing that “SLAM-CLICK!” …and finding you’re on the wrong
side of the door.
