If a woman roars in the jungle does anyone hear

By Leslie B. Patient

Confession Time

#Me Too bewildered me

As it began to flood my Facebook Feed

Women who I knew to be strong and remarkable

Powerful and accomplished

Hashtagged stories of harassment

And I was bewildered

Because these were my contemporaries

My compatriots growing up with Gloria Steinem and ERA marches

Pre-empting Sesame Street

We were young girls who wore bell-bottomed jeans and hair short like Dorothy Hamill

Or long and stringy like Jaime Somers the kickass Bionic Woman

We knew we could be an astronaut, or doctor, or lawyer

And the Convent clad warrior nuns of our Catholic school only confirmed for us
that we had purpose and that purpose had nothing to do with pleasing a flesh and blood man.

So I could not figure out

Why my contemporaries had so many #me too stories

When I decidedly could not say

“me too”

Because when the large and in charge curly haired bully tried to touch my leg on the bus

I punched him in the face

And he learned to respect and fear the kindergarten girl at the Parry Road stop.

In my universe when Bobby B. said I had to play spin the bottle at his soccer party

Because I was a cheerleader

I told him he was full of shit and I walked home

But we still shot baskets at the park that weekend and he stopped asking me to do inane things

When creepy Mr. Stankiewicz tried to rub my shoulders the way he did so many other girls
in our Bio class,
I said in the loudest voice I could

“You had better stop touching me. Now!”

And the class grew deadly silent as he bolted out of the classroom,
but I wasn’t afraid because he knew I was right and he never touched me again
and I still got a legitimate A+

And then there was “Giles” the suave London rugby player my Junior Year Abroad who thought
all Americans girls put out on a first date.

Silly Giles.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have posted my “Ode To A Raging Asshole” on the dorm board
but I didn’t name names.

So why did my incubation in the American 70s teach me to be a lion and roar
while my peers and
later Facebook Friends found themselves in “deer in the headlights” situations?
This was my conundrum and then I realized

I was raised as my father’s son

Out on the diamond hitting fast balls

Side by side tightening lug nuts on the pool filter

Scraping grass muck off the mower’s spark plug

Chopping and hauling wood from the field across the street

Pushing the handtruck with cases of beer down the warehouse loading dock

I learned I was strong in mind and body.

I learned I should demand respect

But maybe that’s because I was raised as my father’s son

And not a dainty defenseless “deer in the headlights” daughter

I am not victim blaming. Please do not misconstrue

I am only trying to organize the discomfort I felt when #Me Too blew up my Facebook

I am lucky, I know that,
never having been trapped in a hotel room or a dark office with someone
who wielded a financial or career-potential power over me, someone for whom
a punch in the face or a scathing ode would do little to deter

The truth is I think there will always be those whose power corrupts
and makes them feel entitled to take whatever they want.

There will be men like this.

There will be women like this.

But a part of me just wanted to say

THIS IS NOT NEW

We have fought this fight

In 1848 when Elizabeth and Susan B., Lucretia, Sojourner said “It’s time!”

And it took another 72 years

In 1920 when Harry Burn’s mother said “Hurrah and Vote for Suffrage”

Though less than 20% of the candidates have ever been women

In 1923 when Alice said Equal Rights for All

But then it was almost 50 years later

In 1972 when Gloria railed with her tinted sunglasses and said Equal Right for All

Again. Still the amendment is not ratified

In 1991 when Anita stood up

But the accused got confirmed to the Supreme Court anyway

So this, I guess, is why my discomfort grew

It’s the bizarre non-linear movement of history that too easily falls into the proverbial

One step forward, Two steps back, fifty-two steps back

I guess it angered me that in 2018 we even have to have a #me too movement

My discomfort is really with my own naivete

Thinking that we already fought that fight

Remembering, we are always fighting that fight

Because it requires

Vigilance and perseverance and systemic and paradigm shifts

This Change moves at glacial speeds every hundred years or so

My Impatience and naivete made  #me too disconcerting

Because I thought we had already all learned to roar

But then I realized that I was only in a very small part of the jungle