A cathartic moment in moving forward and coming to grips with male accountability. Let’s hope that the momentum continues.
Years now passed, a friend asked me out. He wasn’t someone I was attracted to, but I was still hurt to turn him down. He was upset. Nothing overly dramatic or violent happened. He took it, internally, but hard. It was awhile before we were able to talk again.
Days later I was shamed, by a friend of his. I was told he had been encouraged to ask me out, because I was a nice girl and I would say yes.
I felt sick. Decades later I still feel sick.
Sadly, this wasn’t the first time I would feel this way, nor was it the last.
The shirt in the video above was passed down to me from a friend for my son. I’ve struggled with it, after all, it’s just a shirt, but it’s not a motto we have used, ever, in the (almost) four years since he came into our lives. But the thought of my son growing up and making a girl/women feel the way I’ve felt in the past, without even understanding that it’s wrong, or being accountable for it… I can’t be a part of that.
It seemed fitting with the courageous women who have spoken up in the past few months, along with brave women who have spoken up at any time in history, the last day of 2017 marks the end of an outdated philosophy. Let 2018 chime in with words of courage, accountability and lasting change.
