Whose Responsibility Is This?
Before you read: I use the words “women” and “men” throughout this piece because that is the language most often used in these conversations. I understand that gender exists on a spectrum and that not everyone identifies within a binary. This essay speaks from my lived experience as a woman and addresses cultural patterns — not every individual person. There are men doing courageous, beautiful work in this world. And there are women who perpetuate harm. Culture is complex. Responsibility is shared.
Whose Responsibility Is This?
I am currently surrounded by people and their honesty and willingness to say that they are not doing okay. I’ve never heard so many people buck the norm — “hi how are you good and you” — and actually tell me, “it’s really hard, I’m struggling, I don’t know what to do.” I appreciate the honesty.
There is so much swirling. Local news, global news, everything in between. Some news is serious, some news is pop culture, some news is gossip, some news is false — it’s a lot to manage, to understand, to know what to do with.
There is a massive news movement right now about the Epstein Files. I will not reference that name again throughout this essay as a gesture of respect. That name is not worth repeating or putting any power into at this moment.
My experience as a woman has been overflowing with pain around violence toward women, sexual abuse toward women, hypersexualization of women’s bodies and image. I use the word women here, but I also need to bring in the word girls. Young women, young girls, kids, teenagers — all of these humans who live in a female body, who identify as a woman. We’ve all been exposed to this culture. We’ve all been forced to live in it.
Most of the discussion around this topic comes from other women. Women who are willing, able, and strong enough to stand up, tell the stories, and advocate for change. To those women — I thank you for your courage.
Women are being abused and women are standing up for them — how are men involved here? They are typically the perpetrators of the abuse. The perpetrators of the culture of sexualization and violence. And the men who do not perpetuate the acts often perpetuate the culture by staying silent, avoiding allyship toward women, avoiding protection of women, avoiding attempts to change the culture around this. Whether you’re an actor or a bystander, you have every single day the opportunity to change your mind. To make a different choice.
But making a different choice — when it comes to the scale of this situation — and I don’t just mean the particular files I mentioned before — I mean the scale of humanity’s abuse of women and girls — making a different choice is going to require surrender, acceptance, accountability, humility of large proportions.
You. You. You are invited every single day to go about this differently. Every moment. Every day. You get to decide who you talk to. How you talk to them. Your curiosity. Your sorrow. Your accountability. Your plans for change.
I feel like the world is looking at these files and I feel like I should be surrounded by men apologizing to me, standing up for me, checking in on me. I should be surrounded by men who advocate for the emotional and physical safety of women and girls. Who cherish the feminine spirit and all it brings into our world.
But that’s not what I am experiencing.
What I am seeing are men who are quiet. Avoiding. Unwilling to say the words unless invited to. Unwilling to say the words at all.
I could also foresee that an essay like this — or a call to action — would be off-putting to men and feel like they couldn’t say sorry now because being asked for an apology ruins the apology. Ha. What a toxic cycle you’ve put us all in. What a trap.
The time is up for a passive apology. The time is up for subtle change. You missed the quiet window — so now you are being asked. And just because you are being asked doesn’t make your apology worth anything less. It is still needed. More than anything right now.
The culture around abuse and violence toward women and girls has made its way into almost every nook and cranny of this world. I am begging you, men, to start looking around and helping clean up. Find the darkness in the nooks and crannies and help.
Help.
Help.
Help.
You have power. You have agency. You still have a voice here. And I am asking you one more time to show up and help the world heal.
SHOW UP AND HELP THE WORLD HEAL.
You get to decide to do that every single day.
For those of you who have read this far, I appreciate you. And I have something else I’d like to offer you.
I’d like to offer you an apology.
I, personally, have not received what I so deeply desire as an apology from the culture of men. And though I continue to hope, I am also willing to pivot my energy and offer this to the world.
I am so sorry.
Women and girls hold up half the sky.
We are so deserving of love, support, laughter, joy, creativity, spirit.
I see you.
I love you.
And I am so sorry.
