#Metoo and what men can do

No one owes you their story.

This is the primary complaint I have seen from women during the #Metoo campaign that spawned after the allegations surrounding Weinstein broke last week. It's fair, no one should be expected to share any personal stories with strangers, or anyone, let alone something as personal and traumatic as sexual assault.

That doesn't mean those stories shouldn't be heard though, which brings up the question of why don't men hear these stories?

Anthony Bourdain was interviewed on this topic for some reason recently by Slate and had something interesting to say about it, one line in particular stood out to me:

...But I had to ask myself, particularly given some things that I’m hearing, and the people I’m hearing them about: Why was I not the sort of person, or why was I not seen as the sort of person, that these women could feel comfortable confiding in? I see this as a personal failing.

That's the thing guys, we don't hear the stories, because we aren't seen as the kind of people that women are comfortable confiding in.

Think on that for a moment, because that isn't just meathead dudebros we are talking about here, but the vast majority of men are not seen as good choices to confide in, by any woman. I don't just mean strangers or friends or coworkers, but family members, wives, girlfriends, daughters. Consider that someone could trust you enough to tie their life to you, their emotional, physical, and financial safety, they have sex with you and presumably do so willingly, or are otherwise close, they can trust you that much, but still not enough to share their own story, and fellas, they probably have their own story.

That is the level of hurt these stories represent for many women, and that is the level of distrust our society has ingrained in them over how seriously they would be taken if they share their story with anyone.

That's a societal failing to be sure, but as Bourdain said, it is also a personal failing for those of us who claim to care about the women in our lives. If we truly believe we are the kind of person women can confide in, what have we done to show that? It isn't just about talking the talk, just saying "you can tell me anything" doesn't actually instill trust in someone, you gotta walk the walk too, this includes speaking out when you see instances of sexism in the world, and not just egregious acts like crude insults or groping, but the more subtle stuff too.

An example of how I didn't live up to that ideal even today.

I closed at work last night and I made two mistakes, the first and most minor is that I didn't make sure some of the ingredients were fully stocked, and it turned out they weren't. The second, and somewhat more important error was that I forgot to lock the front door, this was discovered by the opening crew the next morning and I learned about it when I went in for my shift at eleven today.
The owner was there too, now Jeff is not known for his cool head and measured responses, but all he had to say, and in a mild tone of voice at that, was "We are gonna get robbed if you keep this up, plus Angie will cut your fingers off", Angie is his wife and my direct boss, currently recuperating from knee surgery, probably not going to cut my fingers off.
That was it, nothing more.

The manager who opened the store was Chris, a woman who Jeff had worked with before in a previous career, and the general manager of our other location, she is helping out at my store while Angie is recovering, turns out he chewed her out for my mistake of not stocking the ingredients I mentioned, plus apparently someone erased a diagram Jeff had drawn over the weekend. This was news to me and she hadn't been working on the weekend anyway.

The woman got yelled at for things that weren't her fault in even the smallest way, the man got two sentences of mild chastisement.

I didn't point this out to Jeff, and odds are I won't, even though it was brutally unfair and representative of his actions with regards to women pretty much the entire time I have worked there, I did speak with Chris afterwards and apologized for my part in it, and agreed that it was shitty, but I didn't do anything to change it, or call out that behavior, and I probably won't. I need the job after all.

There are many people in my situation I am sure, who need a job and have to keep their mouths shut, in my particular situation Chris was and is in no danger physically at least, but that isn't always the case I am sure, so what women get to see is that people who might advocate for them, or at least stand with them, choose to remain silent, the man's job is more important to him than the woman's safety.

The point is, at a certain point it isn't enough to simply not do harm, you have to try to make things better and prove you aren't a neutral bystander. It has to be a pattern of behavior that can be observed.

Understand that I am generalizing here rather a lot, I am sure, or at least hope, that most of you men reading this who are in relationships with women are at a point where she would be comfortable telling you her story, and that you would believe her if she told it to you. But that is not the general rule for society right now, and the only people who can change it are men. It's harder than that though, because those who have to change it are the good men, the bad ones aren't interested, this means that even if you are a legitimate good dude, you still have a lot of work to do, we all do, and no one else is going to do it, women can't, the men who are the problem won't, so that leaves us.