Sooner or later…
One gets kicked in the balls.
I’m not going to make this long.
I’m going to be 72 in September. I’m a guy, heterosexual. Relatively “normal”. Married 48 years ago this August, three daughters, twelve grandkids.
So, you’d think I’d been exposed to the issues of Patriarchy, sexism, and everything that entails for some time now, especially with the woman I married, who puts up with NO bullshit from anyone.
Up until yesterday evening, in fact, I thought I’d been doing just fine. No gripes from the ladies of the family (mostly), I shake my head at all the stupidity of the GOP regarding sex and gender, etc.
Then, this:
I mean, really? David frigging Copperfield?
I know, ladies, go ahead, shake your heads at my naivety. At my ignorance. Guilty as charged.
But really? I mean it took THAT for me to sit back and realize the complete and utter insanity of the world I grew up in to see that someone of mere moderate fame had the power of that fame go so far up into his head that he thought he could sexually molest young women repeatedly and get away with it.
Which he did — until he didn’t.
What I realized was that it isn’t that uncommon — how many men today end up impregnating their own daughters. And get away with it, at least often in a legal sense anyway. But even with the very real possibility of rape or child molestation charges, THEY DO IT ANYWAY.
That’s not just stupidity, that’s an entire way of thinking they were RAISED WITH telling them it was OK. Think about that, guys.
Us. An entire generation, now also teaching those same twisted and shitty ideas to new generations of boys that it’s OK to molest women, regardless of age because - as women THEY AREN’T AS POWERFUL AS YOU.
Take a moment and let that thought settle into your head, and see how that’s now, today, melded itself into our new political landscape. It isn’t that there are still men who think that way, but they are also continuing to teach the newer generations of guys to do that, AND are working to make it OK, AGAIN, as it was in my youth.
The only difference is, now it’s out in the open, they aren’t trying to hide it any longer. They’re working to make it OFFICIAL.
Damn. And to think I used to think Copperfield was OK.
Yesterday, not only was he revealed to have been an asshole like so many other well known figures, but now he’s torn open something in my head that really hurts.
Or, maybe I should thank the Universe for just this once using its cracked sense of humor to teach me a lesson I needed to hear.
I may be an old fart, but it seems I can learn a new lesson.
So, in ending, I am deeply sorry to all the ladies out there. I owe you all an apology, and a very sincere one. I thought it was bad, but I never really let it sink in how bad it really was.
And is.
