Me Too… Enough!😢

     Me too!  Enough!  It’s a great place to start to make the changes we should never have allowed in the first place. I support the movements 100%. My heart breaks for every victim of sexual assault, unwanted flirting or being put in any uncomfortable situation. Don’t get me started on pay  inequity. When I got my first real job back in1969, I made $1.85 An Hour. Read that again, $1.85 An Hour! When I stopped getting a regular pay check, in 1994 – 26 years later, I was making $8.25 an hour, an annual raise of  $.26 an hour. Granted, I don’t have a college degree and always held support or administrative positions but $.26 an hour over 26 years definitely seems unequal.

     When I started this blog I kinda promised to steer clear of political stuff. My Dad always said not to discuss religion or politics and I believe it’s a good rule to follow. But I’m growing weary of the accusations that  target older men of inappropriate behavior that happened forty or more years ago. I don’t believe anyone, man or woman or child, should ever be mauled or worse. It’s not acceptable, ever! However…

     I recently watched a television show popular during the ‘50s. Okay, it was an old Perry Mason and my guilty pleasure, I watch them all the time. Raymond Burr, Barbara Hale, William Hopper were just the best. But I digress. There were a lot of shows and movies back in the 40s and 50s where a male slapped or punched a woman or forced himself on her. There were only a couple of episodes of Perry Mason where anyone showed any disgust of such behavior. It was considered normal, Normal. That was over 60 years ago. Times were very different, men and women were raised much differently than they are now.

     My sweet, funny father banked at the same bank where I worked. (I made $2.85/hour in that job, Woohoo!) He knew all the tellers and they loved him. He was a nice, gentleman in his mid-60s who treated them like people instead of merely clerks. All of us girls of a certain age who worked in the bank socialized, we were all friends. The tellers (all women) often told me he was quite a flirt. A popular song at the time was “If I said you had a beautiful body” by the Bellamy Brothers. The lyrics are “If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me.” My Dad loved the lyric because it was funny. Funny 😁 ! The tellers told me my Dad would always say it to them while they took care of his transactions. He laughed, they laughed, they knew IT WAS A JOKE! They were not offended, they liked my Dad. They didn’t think he meant anything by it because HE DIDN’T. It was a different time.

     There are those who pursue powerful, famous, rich people and if you don’t believe that, well, I think you are naive. Not every couple that makes that trip down the aisle are passionately and deeply in love.❤️🥰 People marry for the money, prestige or position all the time. Call me cynical but I see examples every day. It’s more a business partnership than a marriage. So here’s a question: you see someone in power or who is famous or rich and you want to Be with that person. You make (no holds barred) a play for that person. Say your play is rebuffed and you get angry (maybe a little embarrassed). To get even, you accuse inappropriate behavior, maybe  years later, when other things in your life haven’t worked out like you wanted. Does that seem fair? Should those tellers, who were working at the bank back then, come out now and accuse my Dad of inappropriate behavior 45 – 50 years later? Will they feel better besmirching my Dad who died 30 years ago? Would it have been better if he hadn’t kidded around that way? Maybe, but he knew, and they knew, he meant nothing by it. He was just a friendly older man. He would be completely confused if someone accused him of improper behavior. Confused and hurt.

     My parent’s generation weren’t very demonstrative. They learned to be more affectionate in the 60s. More demonstrative, more hugging; less hand-shaking and shoulder patting. So now we’re blaming them for being too touchy-feely. Back in the 50s, men were criticized for not participating in the birth or raising of their children. Now they are much more involved but are accused of being too touchy – too feely. Solution? Teach the young boys you are raising today. Teach the young girls you are raising today. Teach them to respect each other, to respect themselves. That No means No! Not to take advantage of anyone, under any circumstance, ever. Teach them to think before acting. But, do not go back into ancient history and try to fix something that happened years ago. It won’t solve anything, won’t be satisfying, won’t change things, won’t make you feel any better.

     I watched the Dr. Ford assault testimony against Brett Kavanaugh when he was being vetted for Supreme Court Justice. I wept. I know she was telling the truth. When it happened to her it was a different time. When she said she couldn’t tell her parents, or anyone else what happened, I knew she was telling the truth. In those days, a girl would be too afraid to tell because most of us believed we would somehow be blamed. I was very angry she had to endure the horrifying experience in the first place. But then years later, when she was only trying to do the right thing, she had to endured the humiliation yet again. What angered me even more were the women on the committee who didn’t believe her. I guess they never had to endure something that horrendous in their lives. Lucky them. I had a similar thing happen when I was in college. I was on a date, in his car with no where to go and my date made me perform oral sex. I didn’t even know what it was. I remember being repulsed and scared. But I agreed to go on the date so it was my fault I was in that position, right? I didn’t tell anyone, who was I gonna tell? No alcohol was consumed so that wasn’t a factor. I suppose I could hold my date accountable, it was definitely sexual assault, but instead I made the only choice I had, to move forward and live my life. The episode affected me for a long time but I came to terms with it. I’m great and don’t feel the need to seek “revenge” now. It won’t change anything and certainly won’t serve any purpose.  We might all be better served to move forward and make the best present for ourselves and everyone else we can. Teach your children well, that will be the best way to change things. Don’t seek to call out the past, let it be over. I know there will be those who disagree with me, please put your thumbs away. This is my viewpoint based on my life experiences. I just think there are some good men being vilified for uneducated and insensitive things they did when they weren’t as aware as they should have been. Maybe they weren’t taught very well.