#me too

At a special event at the Lutheran seminary today, we were challenged to see the world through each other’s eyes—the eyes of the disabled, of African Americans. Of the LGBTQ and Latino communities. Each group has been discriminated against, marginalized. So where did lucky me fit in?

We were each given an assortment of colored beads and a length of cord. Each color symbolized a facet of our social identity: religion, gender, nationality, socio-economic class, race and ability. We were presented with a series of statements in each area, and were challenged to add an appropriate color bead for each affirmative response. Statements included: I can assume I will easily have physical access to any building. If police stop me, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race. As I did the exercise, I readily strung colored beads for almost all of these categories…until I got to the gender statements. When I ask to see “the person in charge” I will most likely face a person of my gender. If I have children and a career, people will not ask me how I balance my personal and professional lives. In the end, I could not answer affirmatively to one single statement. So my string of beads revealed me to be privileged indeed—as a white, straight, middle class person…but not as a woman.

This brought me up short. I don’t often think of myself in this light. But it’s true. In 2017, women are still second-class citizens, paid less than men for the same work, marginalized in many settings. And we have been taught our place all too well. Vocal women are strident, un-feminine. Even when we are mistreated by men, we stay quiet because we feel we will not be believed.

So when the avalanche of women speaking out about their negative experiences of harassment and assault began a few weeks ago, it felt like the opening of an old, old wound. Crossing the street to avoid the dreaded catcalls of men who felt it was perfectly OK to make me uncomfortable. The actor in a play in Atlanta who took our pretend “love scene” to very inappropriate lengths. I started to see the hashtag #me too on social media posted by female friends, relatives—even my daughters. Could it possibly be that so many of us have been victimized? The sad answer is: yes.

My girls

 I take two things away from the bead exercise today. #1: I am not alone. We are not alone. #2: speaking up, especially in numbers, can only make things better.

I pray for a world where true equality exists for ALL of us. And I believe that if we each work in our (and each other’s) area of unequal treatment for change, that change will indeed occur. I pray that, someday, in the not-too-distant future, we can add all of the colors to our bead strings. And the post: I am safe can be followed by #me too.