The past year, I've been seeing a recurring theme of men, often in positions of power, abuse that power to sexually harass their co-workers, damn, even random women which suit their fancy. A storm of #MeToo stories from a whole host of women in the public eye gave a prompt to many other less public women to share their stories too. After reading many of these stories, several from my friends in real life, I just want to give them a clearly consensual and very big hug. For those men who think sexual harassment and assault are exaggerated, this should be a wake up call.
More importantly, it should be a moment for men (and my apologies for the heteronormativity that follows) to take a quick inventory of our own past and current behavior. Are we the guys being spoken of in #MeToo stories? We can't change the past, but we can change the future in two important ways.
We can be more mindful of our own behavior, especially those of us in positions of power. And we can call it out when we see such behavior happening rather than turning a blind eye.
At least as important, however, is to turn our attention to how we raise our children, especially our sons. If we want to put a stop to this kind of behavior, we need to raise young men who understand what the limits are and why consent matters. We need to ask what kind of role models we are in our own interactions with women, especially our wives. We need to ask what kind of role models we hold up for them. We need to ask what sorts of media, both traditional and social, they consume. We need stress the ethical worth of each and every human being and their right to their body and their right to be treated as an equal in the workplace and elsewhere.
Yes, not all men are sexual predators, but all men can do something about the problem by doing all we can to raise sons who understand what constitutes sexual harassment and assault and why they are wrong, and who are willing to call it out among their peers. And we can raise daughters who are unafraid to speak truth to power if and when it happens to them.