Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

The sheer number of women I know who have posted #MeToo is agonizing. Not intellectually. I’ve read the statistics know that, depending on the study, anywhere from 75% (EEOC) to 90% (Harvard) of women have suffered sexual harassment, or worse. I’ve heard many stories, too, from my wife, my sisters, my friends, so I know that it happens. A lot.

But until my newsfeed was filled with #MeToo posts, until so many of the women I know opened up and gave witness to their harassment, abuse, and assaults, I don’t think I truly felt it.

I do now. I sure as hell feel it now.

It’s an astonishingly sad fact, and I have to admit that, for a time, I was part of the problem. Like some Hollywood moguls, I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s, and yes, the culture was different back then. It was a culture where even a shy, awkward youth like me could feel guiltless when ogling a female or when using physical contact—a hand on the arm or shoulder—as a tool for flirtation. The excuse that I was young, stupid, and randy; and the mitigation that I never thought it was unwelcome; are both sorely insufficient.

The heart of the matter is that back then there was an unacknowledged entitlement that gave men the freedom to act like a priapic goats towards women. There was only a nascent idea that women were, indeed, individuals, sovereign and inviolable, not only worthy of the same respect we’d give a man, but entitled to it.

Society was changing, then. Society has changed, since, but men are still woefully behind the curve. We have failed to keep up, have dragged our feet (and our knuckles) in the face of cultural evolution. For every guy who, like me, strives to treat women the same way we treat men, and who tries to unlearn the teachings of our fathers, there are others who choose to ignore the shifting paradigms, make lame excuses for their continued bad behavior, and who hide behind gas-filled arguments that blame everything on “political correctness gone mad.”

Well, screw those guys. If they’re going to act like dicks, they’re going to get called out. Simple as that. We need to get real. Women are still being treated as second-class citizens. Women still walk among us in fear. And while we will never be able to eradicate the prognathous mouth-breathing grab-handed cretins that are simply a part of our gene pool, we can support women when they call these creeps out for violating their sovereignty, whether it be physically, psychologically, or via misogynistic legislation.

As a white male, I am a member of a privileged cohort. I have never experienced the abuse, discrimination, violence, abasement, or vile soul-sucking hatred that has been visited on some of my friends and family. This does not, however, give me permission to be blind, blissfully unaware, willfully ignorant of the injustices that exist beyond the sphere of my personal experience. Rather, it makes it even more incumbent upon me to expand my awareness and assist as best I can those who have been mistreated.

I regret the discomfort and offense my earlier misdeeds almost surely caused, but having made those mistakes, I use them as a personal stake in becoming a better person, a better man, a better ally. I’ve not always been the best I can be, but my past failings will goad me to try all the harder to be so in future.

k