I have been really hesitant about posting my #metoo online status.  So many – millions it seems – women have confessed their #metoo status following the hideous exposure of Harvey Weinstein’s deplorable behavior.  I find it slightly amusing that this exposure has come as such a surprise to so many people.  I also find it quite appalling that anyone (Woody Allen, the child predator himself, comes first to mind) would defend this behavior.

As so many people have written over the past few days, who among us, and by “us” I mean women, hasn’t been put in this kind of situation before?  The situation where our gender necessarily implies that we are ready to do anything we have to do to be accepted as qualified and to get ahead.  And that we surely won’t complain about it.  I certainly have.  But what’s almost worse than this is that I have always assumed that this is “just the way it is”.  This is how we have to play the game . . . . flirtation is our way in . . . . wear the short skirt and you’ll get the good case.  Writing those words disgusts me but what’s more disturbing to me is that I have actually played this game.  I am ashamed to admit that I have heard myself say “I don’t mind acting ‘blonde’ to get what I want”.  These have not been my finest moments.

Here are two examples of my complacency.  The first occurred when I worked in a law firm for a year before starting law school.  Specifically, I worked for a lawyer who had been in a really bad accident several years before and was slightly disabled from it.  He could walk and talk but had one arm that was pretty dysfunctional.  So one day I was sitting at my desk when he walked up to me and with a sly smile on his face said “Karen, I need a little help here.  Could you zip me up?”  (his fly, that is)  Almost worse than the question was the expression on his face and the tone of his voice.  It was obvious that he thought this was perfectly acceptable behavior and that I would become another notch in his belt, so to speak.  I could actually hear the people around me fall silent and wait.  Probably waiting for me to get up and do it like others had.  I was pretty young then so it took me a minute to recover.  I am sure I was flushed.  I just sat in my chair and said something like “Mr. A-hole I really don’t think so”, as I stared at anything but him.  He continued to tell me it was no big deal and argued with me for a few minutes to try to get me to do it.  Finally, another male lawyer came by and saw what was happening.  He took A-hole into the office and zipped him up.  I remember shaking my head and thinking, “WTF, what am I?  Your nurse or slave?”.  I was completely humiliated.  But, sadly, I do NOT remember being mad.  Later everyone said “Oh that’s just Mr. A-hole.  He’s just ‘like that’.”  So, I took it as just another example of how the world works when you are a woman.

Then there was the time I had my first performance review during my first year as a practicing lawyer.  I was pretty nervous.  All first-year lawyers were rounded up and led to a conference room to wait for our individual review.  When it was finally my turn, I headed in and sat across from the reviewing partners – all men by the way.  It was a quick 10 minute review.  They were happy with my work and said that I was a good lawyer.  There was just one thing.  “You’re a good lawyer Karen but you should probably not wear such short skirts”.  I remember looking down at my lap to see what I had on, thinking that maybe I had forgotten to put on a skirt or trousers and was sitting in my underwear.  Thankfully, I saw that I had, in fact, put on all my clothes that morning.  I was wearing an above the knee skirt and white blouse.  I remember thinking “Huh.  That’s really the best you can do?  That’s all you have to say to me about the quality of my work?”.  Then I left and after some more thought, I understood that my work was less important to them than how I looked.  And again, took this as another example of the priorities of the world I was operating in.

I realize now that my acceptance of these situations is a direct reflection of how I was taught to see the world.  I am a child of the 60’s, which means that I grew up when the burn your bra, girls can play (some) sports and even go to college movements were just heating up.  It was my experience that competing with men in these arena’s would be better accepted if I over-emphasized my “girliness” because after all, that is what mattered most.  These were not conscious thoughts and I was not taught this in so many words.  It was much more subtle.  I can’t even say that it was necessarily underhanded.  I think that it just . . . was.

Now that I am older and wiser, rather than shorten my skirt I will eyeroll, install my resting bitch face and walk away, possibly even flashing my middle finger on the way out.  I will risk the case and the possible firing.  But what about all those years when I cared so much about being accepted into a man’s world in whatever way I could.  When I would laugh at stupid, offensive insinuations and maybe even crack something stereotypical back.  I am ashamed when I think about my acquiescence in that behavior.  I hope to God that I am teaching my daughter and sons a different way.

We have a long way to go before women are seen solely as competent adults.  This is more clear than ever before and is similar to the falsehood that we have overcome racism in our Country and that people of color are not singled out.  Since President Obama’s election, we have seen the truth.  That is, racism is alive and well.  We have been lulled to sleep and become too complacent in our assumption that we have moved beyond these prejudices.  Our new President has certainly brought this to the forefront, and for that one thing perhaps we can be grateful.  Maybe now we will wake up and really move on.

This is why I have been hesitant to say #metoo.  There is part of me that feels like I don’t deserve to complain since I played along.  However, after much thought and time spent reading about other women who acknowledge that this has been and is, in fact, the world in which most of us live, I want to add me to the list of #metoo.  And add an additional #fuckthatshit.