The Need For Excellent Men

I have spent a lot of time thinking about how I want to reply to the #YesAllWomen hash tag and the conversations that it has been spurring.

There have been many powerful posts and images that need to be heard…there have equally been idiotic arguments and statements made from every party.

I see the rage from those who have been hurt and the fear from those who don’t wish to be seen as monsters.

Personally, it has brought up memories of things that happened to me that I had forgotten. Like being twelve on a tram overseas and having my butt groped multiple times by a grown man before I understood what was happening and then stayed quite because I didn’t know what to say afterwards.

It made me realize that things I wrote off as normal shouldn’t have been. Sexual slurs, inappropriate cat calling, “friends” trying to get close to me so they could look down my shirt.

It made me cry for the incredibly travesties that other women have experienced.

What surprised me is how grateful it made me for men.

For while our culture is surely saturated by men who degrade women, in my life, I have known men who chose to encourage and empower women. Men who knew chivalry not as diminishing of women but as respect for them. Men who chose to stand up for women and protect them, not because women were weak but because we were valuable and equals.  Because nobody should ever be allowed to treat us as less than that.

I am lucky that my father taught me that a man should respect a woman. That I only ever saw love and encouragement modeled in my home by my father towards my mother and towards my sister and I.

That I had uncles and male cousins who told me (even as a young child) that if a man ever harmed me they would show up in force to stand by my side.

That one of these cousins who lived in LA (where I moved to go to school) made sure I always had his updated cell number so I could call him if I ever was in trouble.

That in high school when I told my male friends about the creep that kept looking down my shirt, instead of laughing or writing it off, took it upon themselves to always stand between me and the creep so he couldn’t get close enough to peep.

That in college, two of my closest friends were men who regularly told me I was intelligent and valuable and worthwhile.

That these same two men, when I was being stalked and the stalking culminated in a day of the stalker calling me ceaselessly and shadowing me around campus, chose to stay by my side and took my phone so I wouldn’t have to feel afraid every time my pocket vibrated (to this day I don’t know what they said to the stalker while they had my phone, but I was never bothered by him again).

That when I reported the stalking to a professor, it was taken seriously.  (the professor was a woman in this case …but a fantastic example of a school handling sexual aggression positively).

That I knew many men as friends, who had no romantic interest in me, and they valued me for who I was, not for how I looked or what I could physically offer them.

That my husband honors and respects me, knows that love means sacrifice and not just getting what you want, watches out for me without ever making me feel weak, stands beside me, views me as an equal not as an object.

I read these tweets and articles about #YesAllWomen and after the feelings of sorrow and anger, what comes to mind is that we need to lift up excellent men as examples of what real manhood means.

Saying women have been mistreated is an excellent start. It is vitally important. We must keep doing it. We cannot stay silent and I am profoundly grateful for this opportunity for so many women to speak up.

However, men are being told they are wrong from every direction. Rarely are they given a chance to see what is right.

While we continue to decry the mistreatment of women, let us also lift up examples of excellent men. People who the boys in our culture can emulate. So they not only have a list of what not to do, but they also see exactly what they should be.

(I hope this post will not be seen as de-railing to the positive work that is being done by this hash tag, my desire is that we can also begin talking about a solution as we bring the problem to light).