I grew up with Bill Cosby. It was inconceivable back then to imagine his legacy would be one of sexual assault and possibly jail time. He is now a frail old man, and there are others like him, but unlike Cosby, they have not stood trial for their history of sexual offences. Men who took advantage of women at a time where they abused their power. For those that believe they got away with it, I need only remind you, that karma is a bitch.
No one is going to argue that sexual assault and sexual harassment has been going on forever. That women, for the most part, remained silent around it, not because they wanted to, but were forced to because of their circumstances. But no more. When our generation of women dared to stand up for themselves, they were persecuted. The behaviours and rules in the workplace were different in the sixties and seventies and didn’t change much in the following decades. I don’t know of any stories that date back to the sixties where men in power would stand up for a woman who was sexually assaulted or harassed. If there are, I’m guessing they’re rare. The violated women remained silent, becoming the villain by daring to stand in their truth to a crime they didn’t commit. The process twisted, rooted in an archaic belief system. Boundaries were etched differently back then, and those with influence saw women’s rights with selective vision, exclusively through their perspective. It perpetuated a landscape where men manipulated through power, believing that only they could validate women when the truth is we must do that for ourselves. To seek validation outside of who we are is to relinquish our power.
I wondered hypothetically, what if the character Mary Tyler Moore had been sexually assaulted by someone on her team, who would have stood up for her? It was a time where women were climbing the rungs of their career ladder. Would Murray or Mr. Grant have stood up? How about Ted Baxter, what might he have done? Even though this is hypothetical, it happened to women who were just like her in industries predominantly run by men. I suspect outside of her friends like Rhoda Morgenstern or Georgette Baxter; few would have come to Mary’s defence in fear of their standing being compromised. And yet it happened to many women. Persecuted in a series of ways from losing their jobs to being humiliated or bullied even though they were the ones violated. Their free will imposed upon, during a time that power didn’t lay with women, but with men.
The #MeToo movement has shaken it up. An evolution that will need to find its balance. In the meantime, it has not only kicked the door down around this issue but right off of its hinges. There’s no going back. Several women shared stories with me in how they had experienced sexual assault or sexual harassment in one way or another. Some were speaking about it for the first time because they finally felt they had permission to release it. Some of the painful experiences happening in their own families where uncles, grandfathers, and fathers had crossed the line. For others walking away from a job they loved and having to start all over again was difficult; however, their integrity and conviction were intact. Still, others being forced to adhere to a different standard hoisted upon them by which they would have to succumb to if they wanted to elevate in their professional standing. Meanwhile, the men in the same field had immunity against such requests. Some women felt shame by what they went through others saddened that this chapter showed up in their lives. Others had their faith in their co-workers badly bruised in how little support they received from those who knew but looked away. Then there were those that took their lives.
The stories are tragic, rooted in an archaic comprehension at a time where women did not have rights, and yet so many women had to find their way through it. One story stuck out for me. It happened in the sixties. The perpetrator was a client who openly tried to assault a woman in his car. He schemed to drive her somewhere that was isolated, unbeknownst to her, and then he lunged at her. His back immediately went out, and he was in excruciating pain. She refused to help him and had no choice but to drive herself out of the isolated area to safety. Being incredibly empathetic, she pushed him aside and drove to the nearest hospital, dumped him at emerg as he remained contorted in the car with severe back pain. She tossed the keys at him and walked away. When she went to complain to her superiors, who were all men, they had nothing to compare the event too. They, in turn, consulted with the only senior woman on the food chain at that time. She chimed in to say it was a ‘mans world’ and abandoned her colleague in her time of need. A preconceived and ridiculous notion governed the event and set a precedent for the outcome of this horrible experience. No one helped or even stood by her side. Like so many others, she had to navigate her way through all of it by herself.
The tenacity of our generation of women was to plow through these events and walk a solo journey knowing that what transpired neither defined or diminished who they were, but it didn’t discount how painful it was for them. Some women I know were fearless in identifying their boundaries and that it was not okay to cross them. Many shared with me that had it not been for the support of their girlfriends they would have had nowhere to go to unload the pain they had experienced. The support of these women gave them the courage, freedom, and strength to help them to heal. It was their girlfriends that released the monkey off their backs and set it free so they could move forward despite what happened. It was the sisterhood who showed these women that they had the power to release it and the right to reclaim their lives.
The women who are now standing up are all aspects of ourselves. They got there through our collective energies and experiences. A symbolic torch passed on a landscape that is free of ceilings, walls or doors. We need only look to the left or right of us or stand right where we are to witness how unchecked sexual assault and sexual harassment has been for so long and for so many of our generation. The tide has now swollen into a tsunami. Things have shifted in what feels like overnight. Women are no less than men. They never were. The yin-yang of nature is about balance and is sacred in both female and male energy. Without balance, nothing can work. This movement is about declaring that a primitive belief system, suggesting women can be bullied and manipulated, be shut down. Kudos to the women who initiated that action. The collective consciousness has never been stronger in supporting that initiative. This issue needs to stop and now. I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge all the men who already practice this and are cognizant of that balance. They are responsible for empowering their daughters, sons, sisters, and wives. That boundaries are to be respected and not manipulated and that women and men have the power to call someone out on it. What is being established in these unchartered waters is balance across the board and without exception.
I know what it’s like so I respectfully bow to this generation of women and to all women who have travelled down this road. As for Bill Cosby and those like him, who believed they had rights that were theirs to have, they will now learn the rights that others have that were never theirs to exploit.
Great post Djanka! You hit the nail on the head in so many areas. It is comforting to know that even for those of us that experienced any form of sexual assault and can still not speak publicly about it, that we have so many advocates who did have the courage to speak out. Kudos to them and to all the survivors of sexual assault. #metoo