I’ve spent my life being on the receiving side of an abuse of power by males. Admittedly, there is little I have done to hold my abusers accountable and I feel a degree of shame behind it. Until now, my response has been to acknowledge the abuse is happening and then to either cut and run or bear the pain of the situation in silence. Perhaps my behavior is what it is because the cost of holding the abuser accountable is too high. I think a lot of women can relate.I grew up with two brothers who were both athletic. I, too, was athletic but I rarely played sports with my brothers. One rare summer day when I was ten and my brother was eleven, we decided to play a basketball shooting skills game called, Around the World. To my brother’s surprise and mine, I beat him. And then he choked me. The incident coincided with the few months that I happened to be a little taller. Of course he got in trouble for the assault, but I received the message loud and clear that it is dangerous to challenge the male ego. My brother used his physical strength to cower me for being taller and more skilled on that day. The ultimate repercussion was that we were broken. We never again competed in anything.
There have been numerous occasions when men have used their superior physical strength or high position of power to do what they wanted at my expense. I cringed when then candidate Trump responded that he hoped his daughter would “have the strength to leave a job if she was sexually harassed by her boss”. He didn’t hope that she would hold her accuser accountable, but that she would leave. He was saying that he expected her to bear the consequences of the man’s behavior. At best this reveals his male chauvinism (belief that men are superior to women), his sexism (discrimination based on gender), and at worse his misogyny (a distain for and prejudice against for women).
Well, in the 1980’s, I was sexually harassed by a boss and I did quit without holding him accountable. It wasn’t a sign of strength on my part, but a feeling of helplessness that prompted my departure. I counted the cost and thought it was best to just walk away. I knew that I would have been put through the emotional and financial wringer if I tried to hold that white man accountable for the sexual advance that happened behind closed doors in his office. Who was going to believe a young black woman against a wealthy, respected, and powerful white businessman? Even if I was believed, who would care? I’d seen other women try. Remember Anita Hill? And that was against a black man. Those women usually loss their jobs and were humiliated by the process and ridiculed. Meanwhile their abuser was allowed to continue working without much more than a reprimand, if that. Clarence Thomas made it onto the Supreme Court! Just this past week, Bill O’Reilly was paid $25 million to walk away from Fox News after the company had already paid five women a total of $13 million to leave and remain silent about the abuse they endured at his hand. Roger Ailes receives $40 million. This is a continuation of the abuse!
It is 2017 and earlier this month, I attended an equal pay workshop on campus. The keynote speaker, a professional Latina scientist from USC, retold her recent story of reporting her sexual harasser to Human Resources. She then lost her job and her dignity behind it. She is currently in a lawsuit over the matter and confirmed the emotional toll this entire episode is having on her even with support from the great women’s advocacy organization, American Association of University Women (AAUW).
Whether we choose to fight or not, there is an emotional, mental, and financial cost that women like me have born in relative silence for many years. I applaud the women who have the courage, strength, family support, time, and financial ability to hold their abusers accountable. We rely on their efforts to move our society forward. On college campuses, Title IX is a huge step in the right direction for female students, but we as mothers and teachers have to educate our boys who love and respect us, to fully respect girls and women as their intellectual and emotional equals. The truth is that women have only a third of the physical strength as men and this reality, must also be shared. We have to remind our boys that only a bully and a coward would take advantage of this reality. We, as a society (especially other men) have to hold men fully accountable when they do not. At the same time, we have to find a way to make it easier for females to report their abusers without fear of being further abused by the system of investigation. The public ridicule of women like Anita Hill, Paula Jones, and Monica Lewinsky had a chilling effect on reporting harassment. But, the days of men protecting other men have to end.
In our country and across the world, women and girls continue to be abused both physically, mentally, financially, and emotionally by men who use their superior physical strength, their positions of power, or both as weapons against us. Most victims of human trafficking are women. Sexual assault continues to be a problem for women everywhere despite economic status. Wage and sex discrimination in the workplace continues with the “good ole boys” system firmly in place. Women are still beaten and even killed by the men in their lives. In many countries, the under-education of females is the norm. Sexual harassment and intimidation in the workplace still happens as is apparent with the Fox News scandals with first Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly. I can take heart that public accountability is taking shape in a meaningful way as brave women come forward. Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly are ushering in a new day of accountability. Cosby might have to go to prison while Ailes and O’Reilly get huge payouts to leave Fox. President Trump had to endure the shame of large protests around the world with women wearing pink pussy cat hats! The justice system concerning white men still has a long way to go, but it’s moving in the right direction.
Men who abuse women are bullies, plain and simple. Someone once said that it takes a show of strength to bring down a bully. It is time for our collective society, especially men of good will, to stop allowing these abuses of women to continue. It’s time for we mothers and grandmothers, aunts and sisters to educate and empower our boys to stand as our allies in justice. And it is time to stop protecting the abusers.