My "Me Too" Post

Over the past week, all over social media, there has been a trend of women writing "Me Too" to indicate an experience they have had with sexual assault or sexual harassment. When I first saw this circulating, I chose to ignore it. It wasn't because I didn't agree with the intent. I just knew it was another social media fad that would be forgotten in a few weeks. If people don't believe women testifying in court about these things, who is going to believe a Facebook post? But I kept scrolling through comments of "I can't believe that" and "Wow, I'm so sorry." This confused me. The definition of sexual harassment is "unwanted advances or obscene comments." What woman hasn't experienced that? I'd say almost every woman I know has. Personally, I plan grocery trips for high volume hours because of the times I have been followed into the parking lot. I've been grabbed at bars so hard I bruised. I've been called all kinds of names just for saying "No thank you."  This is not a rare or shocking occurrence.

For some reason, though, it seems that so many people think this is a problem for others and doesn't happen in their worlds. I had a friend tell me once that her dad thought catcalling wasn't a thing in Nebraska. She said it happened to her about once a week. I've had people from small towns act like "predators" are only in cities. The time in my life that I was sexually harassed the most was in high school in a small town. There was a boy that made me feel uncomfortable almost every day for a year. He would corner me when I was alone and make sexual comments daily and touch me as we went by in the hallway. He wasn't some criminal. He was a nice boy from a good family that was friends with all of my friends. He went to church. He was someone all the teachers and parents loved. I spent most the time thinking something was wrong with me for not liking the attention. I'm not writing this to bash this guy or to get pity. I honestly don't think he thought he was doing anything wrong. I just want to point out that this is not an isolated or "other" problem. This is about men feeling like they have the right to say of do whatever they want to women.

Thanks for letting me vent a bit, Internet friends. Have a great week. As I tell my students whenever they leave the room, "Work hard. Be kind."