Me Too

By Melissa Finnegan

#metoo

I know, I know, I’m late to this party.  I’ve seen the hashtag go by and each one has resonated with me, but I didn’t feel the need to join in myself.  I've never been a victim of sexual assault (thankfully) and I didn’t feel like any harassment I’ve experience really warranted adding my voice to the chorus.  Because, in many ways, I’ve stopped recognizing it as harassment.

Yesterday, as my husband Patrick and I were wrapping up our day, he was watching clips from The Daily Show while I put away some painting supplies.  On my way to the basement I heard a female correspondent say “When it comes to sexual harassment, every day women are going through an obstacle course.  It’s like a ‘tough mudder,’ but instead of mud, it’s dicks.”  And it hit me.  Yes.  Yes we are.  That statement reminded me of an event that I had honestly forgotten about that had happened that morning.  At 8:30 am on a Wednesday, on my way to work, while I was wearing a conservative skirt and sweater, a van full of guys started hooting and hollering at me.  I rolled my eyes, kept going, and forgot about it.

And that’s how insidious it is.  It becomes a normal part of your day.  The constant navigation of the obstacle course.  Ignore the guys in the van.  Scan the men on the bus, looking for a threat.  Be hyper-aware of who’s around you at the bar.  It’s a constant background noise of vigilance that is so ingrained in so many women, we’re no longer consciously aware that we do it.

It’s even worse than that.  The fact that it’s so commonplace means that subtle escalations don’t seem to be that bad.  Get used to the hollering on the street and, suddenly, having your butt grabbed in a bar or while walking up a staircase isn’t that surprising.  And you shrug it off.  A guy at work gives you a full body look-over and leers, and later you laugh about it with your friends.  And on, and on, and on.  Each increasing level of harassment or borderline assault is less shocking because all the “lower level” harassment has just become so normal.

And it starts young.  I recall a friend of mine recounting how she watched older teenagers checking out her 12-year old.  Twelve.  And I wasn't surprised by that because, yeah, that’s when I seem to recall my first awareness of this part of reality as well.  That’s when I first started to learn how to navigate the obstacle course.

It’s important that we remember and tell these stories. Because the men in our lives, the good men, who would never dream of grabbing someone or yelling at them from a car, often don’t understand how pervasive this is.  Poor Patrick, the first time he was with me while someone drove by and cat-called me, he was so floored.  He was absolutely shocked that people actually do that.  And all I could do was look at him and say, “yeah, this happens all the time.”

So yes, #metoo.  #AllOfUs.  This is the world we live in and the world we’ve come to accept.  It’s a normal part of life that we don’t think about until someone stands up and says, “hey, this is not ok.”  Until we all stand up and say “IT'S NOT OK.”

This post represents the opinion of the author in her personal capacity and should not be construed as the official position of any agency, organization, or contractor by which the authors are presently or have been previously employed.