{"id":87961,"date":"2018-01-09T11:13:24","date_gmt":"2018-01-09T16:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=87961"},"modified":"2018-01-09T11:13:24","modified_gmt":"2018-01-09T16:13:24","slug":"column-the-human-condition-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=87961","title":{"rendered":"COLUMN: The Human Condition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"All sexual harassment isn\u2019t created equal<\/em><\/p>\n

If you hate all men, move along; there\u2019s nothing to see here.<\/p>\n

I was born and raised in a male-dominated, military family in rural and sparsely populated northern Minnesota. My mom was a \u2018single\u2019 (sort of), working mother before it was trendy or generally became the utmost necessity. My father was deployed overseas with the Army.<\/p>\n

As a result, my siblings and I were left largely unsupervised, and my being the youngest and the only female, don\u2019t think predators didn\u2019t notice. The memory of my sexual abuse begins at age 3 and escalated from there, including physical and psychological abuse and torture. Once that lack of supervision existed, it was open season for mom\u2019s \u2018guy friends,\u2019 friends of the family and even if I walked home alone from Sunday school. I was gang-raped before age 5.<\/p>\n

I just hit the high points enough here to make folks understand why I hate all men\u2026 Except I don\u2019t, and if I<\/em> don\u2019t, I generally feel nobody else has the right to hate them all, either.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had two jobs eliminated for reporting sexual harassment. Both times I reminded myself that Anita Hill \u2013 a well-spoken, intelligent, unemotional and educated woman \u2013 got her ass handed to her, so I didn\u2019t stand a chance.<\/p>\n

Ironically, both times, the corporate leadership where I worked was female; so were the client-consumer-customer bases.<\/p>\n

I am riveted to the #MeToo movement. I am hopeful this is a turning point in raising awareness that we are not something to be preyed upon for the amusement or pleasure of powerful men.<\/p>\n

There is overwhelming evidence in the cases of so many of the accused. You know the names, so I won\u2019t waste space listing them here, but these were men in positions of power: men who could offer jobs, grant raises and promotions, or take them away. They have the money to ruin reputations and careers. They held the livelihoods and futures of #MeToo in their hands.<\/p>\n

Then there is Al Franken.<\/p>\n

Franken is a completely different animal. He is a comedian, a field which \u2013 since Shakespeare\u2019s time and before \u2013 relies a lot on being raunchy. That famous photo on the airplane is less damning than it is exonerating. There were shadows under his hands, so he clearly was not touching Leeann Tweedon, there was a photographer in the room witnessing it, and if he had been caught in the act, his expression would have been OH, [EXPLETIVE DELETED], not the clearly posed, \u2018Hey! Get this on film!\u2019 expression that is seen. It was meant to be funny and is a good representation of how men and women generally don\u2019t share the same sense of humor.<\/p>\n

In addition, I haven\u2019t found a single document indicating that he was in a position of power over his accusers, and I\u2019m not seeing the intent to humiliate\/alarm\/frighten\/harass\/etc. In my opinion, that photo is evidence that adult human beings can be immature, obnoxious dip*****, and NO gender\/identity has cornered the market on THAT, trust me. If a woman said, \u201cFranken, are you seriously grabbing my [backside] right now with my husband standing right there?\u201d It would have been a teachable moment, albeit a possibly painful one for him, and the behavior likely would not have been repeated.<\/p>\n

What bothers me about #MeToo is how many women I\u2019m hearing telling men to shut up, as if they aren\u2019t part of the conversation, part of the problem and, therefore, will have to be part of any reasonably effective solution.<\/p>\n

Without discourse \u2013 and it might get ugly at times, nothing will be resolved. As someone who may be accused \u2013 justly or not, and as someone who may desire peace in the workplace and public (maybe even home), you have not just a right, but an obligation to share your experiences and perspectives. At some point, everyone\u2019s been powerless over something, so saying that you don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to be powerless as a woman is ridiculous. It\u2019s like saying you can\u2019t empathize with a rape victim or someone who\u2019s lost a spouse or child because you\u2019ve not had that experience.<\/p>\n

Powerlessness is a horrible, gut-wrenching feeling, regardless of gender or situation.<\/p>\n

It is debilitating to dread having to walk into a hostile environment, especially when you have no choice but to pay the bills; the sleeplessness, depression, despair and anxiety can be crippling. And the lower-paying the job, the more likely a woman is to be victimized and stay quiet about it because she\u2019s a paycheck away from the streets.<\/p>\n

Conversely, women have forever gotten away with malicious prosecution, telling the courts their baby daddies are molesting the kids because they are in a new relationship and want the child support but don\u2019t want daddy having visitation. That hurts children, hurts men, backlogs the system and dilutes empathy.<\/p>\n

How do we protect our sons, our husbands, our brothers? Even if there\u2019s no evidence, they are put in the position of having to mount a defense, and their reputations are forever in question.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re in a situation where guys can\u2019t tell a woman her dress is pretty without worrying they will wind up fired and in the news. I\u2019m seeing little of anything that resembles due process. Further, I\u2019m imagining an environment where men aren\u2019t going to risk asking women out, so women will be taking anti-depressants because they can\u2019t seem to get a date.<\/p>\n

Men are on the verge of becoming the biggest victims of all, and maybe it\u2019s just their turn, but two wrongs\u2026<\/p>\n

All sexually inappropriate jokes and behavior aren\u2019t created equally; men have to learn not to practice presumed familiarity, and women need to learn early on some tools to empower them to check that inappropriate behavior when it occurs \u2013 no matter how awkward and without reprisal \u2013 and eliminate the lion\u2019s share of this victimization.<\/p>\n

Martha E. Conway is publisher of www.MadisonCountyCourier.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All sexual harassment isn\u2019t created equal If you hate all men, move along; there\u2019s nothing to see here. I was born and raised in a male-dominated, military family in rural and sparsely populated northern Minnesota. My mom was a \u2018single\u2019 (sort of), working mother before it was trendy or generally became the utmost necessity. My […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23677,23808,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-mSJ","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Martha-Conway-2.jpg?fit=140%2C140&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/85945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}