Why Women are Pushing Back

If I had to sum up in one word what all the protests and the public backlash is about from women it would be that they are "tired". They are tired of being viewed as sex objects. They are tired of having their gifts and talents overlooked only to instead be reduced to their bust size and weight. They are tired of middle aged, balding men with potbellies looking at every attractive woman as if she's auditioning for his approval making comments like, "If she had bigger boobs or butt she'd be perfect." What I want to say is, well maybe if you lipoed your man boobs she could graft that into her breasts and they'd be to your liking.

For awhile a woman overlooks it. Kind of like the first time someone steps on your new shoes. You don't like that they scuffed up your new steps, but you brush them off and keep it moving. Then another person steps on them. Dang, there goes another mark. Oh well, I can clean them. Then comes another person who steps on them. You try to brush them off again, but the marks from the other two scuffs are still on there and now it's getting harder to erase the marks. So you take them home and you scrub really hard to get off all the marks. There - finally. They look clean again.

You get up the next morning, put on your outfit, slide on them clean shoes, look in the mirror....dang, you're looking fresh! You head out of the house and are on your way to a very important meeting, but before you can get to your destination here comes another little nasty-nasty stepping on them shoes. Then all of a sudden you freak out and kick him in the shin and he's like, "Man, what's your problem lady? All I did was touch your shoes."

And so here we are with a generation of women who are tired of being stepped on.

I remember that's exactly how I felt the day I got this text. This man had asked me out to dinner. It was our first time going out. I wasn't interested in him in a romantic way, but whenever I had visited the store that he owned we always had good conversation. He seemed like a really nice person and I thought he might be somebody that would be fun to hang out with. So after dinner I thought it was a bit forward when he asked me if I wanted to come over to his place. I politely declined. "No, I have to go to work tomorrow". I said goodnight and got in my car.

Not even five minutes later he called me. "Did I say or do something to offend you?" he asked. "Uh, no...." I responded. A moment of silence as he seemed perplexed. "Was it my culture or something?"

"Uh no...."

"I thought i made it clear when I called you," he said. "Excuse me?" I could feel my pulse begin to quicken as I tried to contain the pressure that was building inside of me. Surely he isn't about to say what I think he's going to say. He continued, "When I called you I thought it was obvious why I asked you out....that I wanted you to come over."

"Well that's not how I roll, okay?"

"There's a lot of women who want me," he said. "Well, then I suggest you give them a call," I said and hung up. But I guess that still wasn't enough. He then sent me the following text:

I guess he thought mentioning his supposed "huge manhood" might change my mind. Not. My blood boiled! The nerve of this man. Was he foreign? Yes. Did that have anything to do with his behavior? No. I had met many other men - black, white, Hispanic, American, Mexican....it didn't matter the race or nationality, there were so many that seemed to share this same mentality that women were mere sex objects for their gratification. And this is probably why his words that evening really set me off. I had cleaned off them shoes many times and now here was yet another little nasty-nasty putting marks on them.

And from talking to other women this attitude is pervading men in our society. My friend called me the other day irritated by a conversation she had with a coworker. The woman told my friend that she had mentioned to her cousin that he should ask her out. She then went on to tell my friend what her cousin said.

He asked, "Does she have a big butt? Cause you know I like big butts." She then went on to appease her cousin by telling him, "Oh yes, you'll be pleased. She's got some back on her."

"Who said I wanted to go out with him in the first place?" my friend said. "And what makes it even worse, is he's a pastor. If even the pastors act like this, who is setting an example for men?" I could empathize with my friends disdain.

Like so many other women, my friend had been put on display as if her body was a smorgasbord and this man was going down the line picking and choosing what he wanted to put on his plate. And it would be much easier to brush these kinds of comments off if there weren't so many of them surrounding us.

So, a woman either keeps cleaning those marks off of her shoes or as she gets weary she no longer bothers to clean them off anymore and she begins to wear those marks even though she doesn't like them and she knows they're unbecoming of her.

Let's just flip the roles here for a minute to try and get men to understand how we feel as women. Imagine if when we met a man our conversation went like this.

"How tall are you?"

"What kind of car do you drive?"

"What do you do for a living?"

"How much money do you have in the bank?"

"Could you drop your pants? I just need to measure something real quick."

I'm guessing they would be offended and feel violated. Well, welcome to our world.

I was having a discussion recently with a group of men. One of the men jokingly said to the other men, "We gotta do something. Women are about to take over." Of which I half jokingly, half not so jokingly said, "Yeah, because men aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. So women have decided that if we're going to keep carrying the man's load we might as well take the lead." If there is an empty space sooner or later something is going to fill it.

And right now, we have quite the vacuum of men who are not fulfilling their roles as providers, protectors, faithful husbands and committed fathers. Instead, we see a bunch of boys in men's bodies behaving like little children who want what they want and when they don't get it they take their toys and go home. So after awhile, you get tired of playing with those kids and you go buy your own toys.

This is what we're seeing today. Women are getting tired of playing with little boys who treat them like a toy, and then when they don't want to play the game in which they always seem to have a different set of rules, they run away.

So, now you are seeing women who are getting their own toys, and they've decided they will set the rules of how this game is played. But, before we set the rules, we need to stop and consider.

Anytime there is an inequality or injustice, when the pendulum begins to swing back there is always the temptation of the group that's been mistreated or oppressed to swing the pendulum too far in an attempt to make their oppressor pay for real or even perceived injustices.

It started with Harvey Weinstein, or maybe it was Bill Cosby, either way like dominoes America's beloved, powerful, famous, political, and Hollywood icons began to fall. When the accusations first came against Bill Cosby I didn't believe it, because like much of America our family had grown up watching the Cosby's and looked to him as a role model. It wasn't until woman after woman kept saying the same story that my favorable image of him died and I had to admit that person that I had grown up loving wasn't so lovable.

By the time the accusations had gotten to Matt Lauer, Russell Simmons, Kevin Spacey, Larry King, Ben Affleck, Louis C.K., Al Franken....and on the list went, I was swinging back and forth between two pendulums. One side was cheering on their falls, saying, "It's about time these men get their due".

Then there was the other side that wanted to jump in front of the lynch mob and say, "Wait a minute. Before we go hanging people and firing them shouldn't we at least give them due process to make sure the allegations are true? I mean, I'm just saying, what if some of these accusations are people jumping on the train because they want some money, or fame, or are just plain ticked off at men and this is their way of getting back?"

I get the ticked part. Trust me ladies I get it!

I can even understand Minnie Driver when she said, "There are so many men I love who do NOT frame the differentiation between sexual misconduct, assault and rape as an excuse or worse - our problem. Such b*****ks", in response to Matt Damon's comment about differentiating between, "patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right? Both of those behaviors need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated, right?"

While I wholeheartedly agree with Matt, I can empathize with why Minnie said this when you consider her history. She shared how during the taping of "Good Will Hunting", of which Matt was a part of, Weinstein made the comment on set that she shouldn't get the part because she was "unf***able". It's been 20 years since that happened, but as Minnie said, "That stayed with me." My guess is this wasn't the only time in her life where this type of degradation was aimed at her, and so there goes the scuff on the shoes. We try to wipe it away, but it keeps coming.

So, in my conversation with this group of men, one of the men made the comment, "After these chics have sex with these men to advance their career then they want to come back and say it was sexual harassment."

"I'm afraid to even tell a woman she looks nice or she might come back and say I was sexually harassing her," another man said.

A third man chimed in, "Women's a**es be hanging out then they be like, 'Why are you looking at my butt? That's harassment'."

Everyone laughed...including me. I couldn't disagree. Everything they said was true. I had been at the grocery store just the day before when a woman who walked by me had on a sheer (very sheer I might add) dress on with a thong underneath it. I was just trying to get some food, but instead all I could see was two butt cheeks that were between me and the green beans I was reaching for.

Their points were valid. On one end women are telling men to stop treating us as sex objects and then on the other end we have Miss Derriere grocery shopping in her thong. And it's not just Miss Derriere at the grocery store, we have many other Miss Derrieres who are famous - we won't mention any names, but one Miss Derriere in particular who has been rumored to have fat injections to make it bigger and likes to take lots of butt selfies - are known for not much more than showing their derrieres.

So, if we are going to be fair women then we have to look at this from an equally fair angle. Are men totally to blame for this sex crazed environment we now find ourselves enslaved to? As much as I want to call them a bunch of sorry SOB's, man bash and blame men for all the problems in the world, these annoying little words like - truth, balance and fairness - get in my way of hanging every man by his penis.

I understand that when we get hurt, especially when the hurt is deep or keeps happening, if we're not careful we can begin to see everyone who reminds us of those hurts through wounded eyes and without realizing it and unintentionally, we can take out that hurt on innocent people. That's called innocent crossfire. It happens every day in gender wars, race wars, political wars, socioeconomic wars - making people pay for something they had no part in.

I remember when I first got divorced from my husband who was a serial cheater amongst many other undesirable things, every man I met - didn't matter if you were an attorney working late at the office, the UPS guy doing some extra rounds, or the minister praying for a single lady - it was all a masquerade so you could cheat!

A man could smile at me, "Hi, how are you?" I would snarl, "Great Mr. Cheater! How are you?" I just loved men right after my divorce! I remember another friend of mine who found out after seven years of marriage and two children later that her husband was in the closet. Every guy she tried to date after that she thought was gay.

"How did your date go?"

"He was doing some stuff that just didn't seem right......I think he's gay."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Girl, I know gay when I see it...and he was gay."

Okay, maybe so, but maybe not. Just like every man I met was a cheater, or maybe not. So, my point is this, are there legit sexual harassment cases? Abso-freakin-lutely! Are there not so legit sexual harassment cases and outright lies - you bet your derriere there are. Do I think women have a right to be mad and pushing back right now? With no question - yes! And I'm glad they are.

However.....

If we are not careful, the pendulum will swing too far, and anytime it does that, guess what? It eventually swings back just as hard the other way. But, if we are willing to admit that women have played a part in this too (think one-night stands, sexting, nude pics....that nobody forced you to do), then we just might be able to find something good out of all this mess.

For one, it has got us talking about something that for years has been like a snowball rolling down hill at full force - getting bigger and faster with no end in sight, until now it's finally crashed into a skier and smashed him flat. I tried to explain it to the group of men like this, yes some of these women slept with these men fully willing in order to advance their careers. Did they want to? No. Were all of them forced? No. Were some willing? Yes. However, willing doesn't equate wanting, which means during and after there was resentment and an underlying anger boiling.

It's the same as some of the women having one-night stands, sexting and sending nude pics - they may be willing, but not necessarily wanting. What do I mean by that? You have different types of women just like you have different types of men. You have the Miss Derriere women who are going to shop in their thongs and like Marvin Gaye after the first date they're singing "Let's get it on....ohhhh babeeey, let's get it on..."

Then you have other women who want something real, but it seems every man they meet (thanks to Miss Thong) is instantly asking for "sexy pics" and expecting sex after dinner (that he didn't even pay for, I might add). Then on top of that, you got all the single moms that are holding it down after dad walked out and she's left raising the kids on her own, night after night, year after year.

Let me also not fail to mention the married women who are supposed to be Oprah Entrepreneur at the office, Betty Crocker in the kitchen, Mrs. Beaver Cleaver to the family and Jenna Jamison the porn star at night.

So, here you have the modern day woman working nine to five, taking out the trash, helping kids with homework, driving them to activities, packing lunches, paying bills, dealing with leaking pipes, sibling rivalries.....and all she wants is a strong man to stand by her side, love her, protect her, help her, be her protector, confidante and best friend.....but instead, after going out two times with a guy she gets a text, "Do you want to f***?" Yep, that's an actual text I got from another guy.

So, guess what? While yes you have women that are "willing", just remember not all of them are "wanting" to do these things, but they do it because they feel as if this is all the options they have, but they are angry and tired about their so-called options. And this is why women are pushing back.

So, to all the women out there who are tired, I'm dedicating this poem to you. Much love my sisters....carry on, you are strong!

Oh Woman

Oh woman…I see that tear from your eye…

Oh woman…I see this weight got you tired,

Stressors pulling from your life,

At every corner there is strife,

Your heart bleeding from that knife,

Got you squeezing your heart tight,

Them tears falling late at night,

But you be smiling in the light,

Oh woman…I see that tear from your eye…

One hundred things on your mind,

But you turn survive into thrive,

With no one there by your side,

You tuck them kids in at night,

A referee breaking up fights,

Seeing time pass you by,

Wasted years from those lies,

Oh woman…I see that tear from your eye…

World got you caught, like Catcher in the Rye,

A lion’s head that hangs, on the wall like a prize,

Sex and love is your chains, but to your demise,

Conditions your submission, then you watch him fly,

Gave your love like an ocean, but that stream it ran dry,

But since love is your potion, you kept fixing for that high,

And like a kite taking flight, you pushed your love to the sky,

But like two rockets set in motion, two worlds did collide,

Oh woman…I see that tear from your eye…

Oh woman…is this, why you cry?

#WhyWomenArePushingBack