With all the #metoo hashtags that hit the other social media platform I frequent, I had to take several days to come back from my initial recoil as a man and as a human being. I was not surprised that 99% or more of the women on my friends list had an experience of sexual inappropriateness, harrassment or assault, or all of the above.
This is not okay with me. However, with my silent passivity in the presence of its occurence, I see how too many times I have been complicit in allowing this to seep into our culture. The world is a dangerous place right now for women, and has been for a very long time. It's gotten somewhat safer with the rising up of womens' voices everywhere about this topic, but at the same time it's gotten even MORE dangerous because there may be some backlash lurking.
I own my part in allowing this to happen, and I do my best to counter balance it in the area I have the most influence: when I teach acting.
I try to teach young aspiring women to know the dangers of this industry, and I continually impress upon them that it is perfectly okay to say "no" in this business. I also let them know that there may be repercussions for their choice, but also that the person they might have to say no to is only one person, and there will be countless others with integrity that would not abuse them or treat them in an undignified way.
But I digress. What I really want to share about today, and in future posts over the next few days is the behavior of men. In my opinion, many of the "of age" men in our current North American society behave like teenage boys. And even when they grow past the age of 25-26-27 and into their early 30s they still behave like teenage boys. To me, this too is not okay. These men have not been taught how to behave like men by men that have learned. They are instead being taught by social media and advertising how to behave like adult men, and again many of these posters and advertisers with opinions and lots of page hits and likes have not been taught by a man who has learned how to behave like one.
I don't have all the answers, but I do have a few suggestions. Again, I want to lay them out over a few days, otherwise this one post will take 20 minutes to read, and you all have other things to manage in your lives. So, here goes with SUGGESTION NUMBER ONE: we need to teach young men and boys about clear boundaries. We as a society and as individuals in places where we have influence need to teach young men and boys about what it means when a woman or a girl says "no", or what it means at any time that our young males don't get what they are after.
Unfortunately, in our current North American society it's been shown that with enough money and influence the rules can sometimes be bent to accommodate. This is not okay with me either. It is sending the wrong message. It is suggesting that boundaries can be transgressed if you have enough money and influence, a la Harvey Weinstein and the many actresses he has harmed as only one example.
I may be bordering on another inflammatory topic here, but I believe in our current society that too often the proper consequences have not been doled out fairly especially to the rich and inflential, be they individuals or corporations. But that is a topic for another day. However, this does influence in my opinion the lack of correct punishment for certain individuals regarding transgressions against women.
Anyway, back to my first suggestion of teaching clear boundaries. This to me is one of the most important things for people in general, men and women, to learn. However, I want to place the onus on men to learn it first, so that they can then become more rooted and centered in respecting boundaries, because they know their own.
How do we teach this? We teach them that it is okay to be denied. It is okay to be told "no" to. It is okay to not always have what you want RIGHT NOW. It is also okay to FEEL HOWEVER YOU FEEL about not getting what you want. We live in an society of instant gratification and impatience. I know both of these from firsthand personal experience, and it's not a fun feeling. However, I have learned to temper my temperament by learning to re-channel and re-focus that energy into something productive. Because the other thing we don't want to do is shut down that energy flow. Because if we do that, then we can only expect an inappropriate explosion or overreaction at a later date.
For the sake of brevity, I will address channeling this energy in another direction in a future post. Thanks for making it this far!
WARM HUGS
