It is "the turning of the tables" on men who have for years enjoyed the "boys will be boys" permission slip...

Contributed By:Dorothy Nevils maslivend@sbcglobal.net

In just a few days, 2017 will be but a memory. It’s been a wild ride, to be sure, but, depending on who you are, it will likely rest on separate sides of the compound “bittersweet,” a word that seemingly contradicts itself, reminding me of a song “back in the day,” “Get Your Lie Straight.”

For many, it has been bitter, but others can finally experience some semblance of victory. It has been a long, dark ride through a tunnel into a welcoming light. Forgive my drifting back into song, but, as Sam Cooke crooned. “It’s been a long time coming…” and “a change is gonna come…” The change is in progress, a change so drastic that many on the “wrong side” are in water hotter than they ever imagined!

What, pray tell, is this change of which I write? It is “the turning of the tables” on men who have for years enjoyed the “boys will be boys” permission slip, given since they were little fellows. They have been excused – in some cases celebrated – for expected sexual abuse of women. Finally, the status bars are being adjusted so that women are finally being considered, to use a phrase familiar to many, “truly human.”

Though our counterparts – and even some on the “home side” of the playing field – don’t recognize the injustice women have suffered, it is real! Women have been treated as “goods,” ornaments, or toys…anything but “equals.”

Who we are has been determined – defined, really – by men, and women have bought into it.We have overlooked our own attributes, depending instead on the man’s “stamp of approval.”

In the past few weeks, women have spoken out, revealing the disdainful behavior to which they have been subjected, possible because of a “power” difference: Some women were children…. some were employees…

The reasons for silence all had to do with power. The #me too movement allowed some women to take back their power, and reveal what had happened to them. Men whom people respected lost their standing, lost their jobs, and lost their seats in Congress (but not the White House!)

Some, even women, sympathize with the men. After all, this is what has happened all our lives and we haven’t died. “Get over it!” is what women tell other women. It’s as if, unless the actual body is hurt, there is no hurt! “Men will be men!”

No, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to see the hurt. To look at a woman or a girl and see the thing, the object she has become. To look at a whole person and see only a part, an arrangement that meets – or not – one’s specs, much like a pair of shoes, or a cantaloupe.

“Things, they are a’changing,” but not nearly enough. We have to see women as equal to men, girls as important as boys. We must quit pushing, rushing little boys to “little men,” as if “man” is the “top of the leader board.” We dare not call a little girl, “little woman.”

It’s way past time for this to end! It’s time for equality, respect, and dignity, and we must demand it!

Yes, Sam Cooke, it has “been a long time coming…” like w-a-a-y overdue!

Story Posted:12/16/2017