My Dad, the U.S. Presidency, #metoo, and the Women's March (yup, all that in just a few words)

Dad roared, "I'm going to treat her like a woman should be treated!!" I was about five years old standing in the living room with my mother, older sister, and grandparents. 911 was quickly called to protect my mother. My sister and I watched the police lights through the lace curtains of the next door neighbor's row-house as Dad was taken into custody.  Obviously, there's more to the story but that's enough for now.

Alongside that memory, Mom tells the story of all of us driving along in our VW van when I was small. Dad waxed on about becoming President of the United States and he meant it. As the story goes, I piped up from the back seat, "Mommy, Daddy's crazy." And Mom burst into tears. I don't remember this moment but it was pivotal as Dad would be diagnosed with schizophrenia and become homeless in the years to come. When I was six years old, Mom packed laundry baskets in the night and my uncles came to help her move with the five of us kids. She's a fierce survivor that woman, my mother. 

So when Dad roared his infamous roar in our living room, it's easy to lay that on the crazy as if that's all it takes to explain it. Here's the thing, my father's words were NOT crazy. Calling it "crazy" too easily excuses the origins of the roar and his behavior. That roar was a cultural norm unleashed through the crazy. Let's not further shame people struggling with mental illness by piling on social ills that belong to all of us. 

When then presidential candidate, Donald Trump, revealed himself to be a pussy grabber and kiss pusher in recorded video, I thought his candidacy was over (listen here). I was shocked when the GOP solidified his candidacy and voters elected him to the presidency.

When then President Clinton, at age 49, had sexual encounters with a 22 year old intern in the Oval Office of the White House, the critique from his political supporters was fairly quiet. While respecting the intern's claim that the relationship was consensual, the power differential between the two of them and the lack of leadership on the political left to critique the president gives significant pause to consider "how women should be treated." 

The mistreatment of women is accepted as normative in the U.S. Presidency, so much so that someone can still get elected to the office with major strikes against them in this regard. I've been in recent conversations when people talk about the normalcy of men using their positions of power to stoke their own egos as if that explains everything and we should all go along with it because that's simply the way things work. Well I'd like to see the day when we collectively shout, "That's not how this works; that's not how any of this works!!"

At a very young age, I heard my father roar something that many people believe about women. I'm grateful for the #metoo movement begun by Tarana Burke to support young Black women that now frees women of all colors to speak their truth about sexual harassment and assault (read more here).  There are, indeed, amazing men on the planet who don't believe for a second that women should be thus treated. However, it's unsettling to me that the "treatment of women" is up for debate in terms of what is okay to say out loud about us and to do to us. Much, much worse is the daily experience of women and also men who continue to be harassed and assaulted with no recourse. 

So, I'll be at the Women's March in Denver this Saturday. Marching for family reasons, for myself, and for the many women who have yet to heal from their experiences or who are not free to march or who are fearful to tell their truth or who cannot safely get away from someone who is hurting them whether it be a customer, an employer or a family member or a President of the United States. Marching is the next right step for me.

#metoo