On Silence

creative commons licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Rochelle, just rochelle

What are you saying when you are not saying anything? It’s among many complicated things we tend to oversimplify. I missed the incident that spawned #YesAllWomen — One might make akin to Faking Cultural Literacy, but my tea leaves are generated from what people I know, trust shared via twitter.

Horrified silence.

And there is this. Church camp? A lot of that? More than I would ever know? Holy bleep. I live in a sheltered cave.

So I become painfully aware of the privilege of my gender. Not only am I spared these experiences, the behavior of #NotAllMenButMaybeMany is so foreign to me a way of being, I feel as if I am studying some species in a zoo, trying to comprehend the information on the sign, and ending up with shallow understanding of their behavior.

I do not know what to say.

The last thing I want to be is patronizing. I don’t want pats on the back, I don’t want assurance. I don’t need to be told I am good. My ethical compass is in tact.

But is that enough?

So I say nothing.

Knowing there are plenty of times in history when people saw, knew, and said nothing.

I wrestle internally, and come up empty. And compared to what victims live with, my so called struggle is less than negligible.

And say nothing.

What we say does not matter as much as what we do (#obvious).

I would like to believe, that if every coming across this behavior seen in another man, I won’t be silent. I hope to spring.

creative commons licensed ( BY-NC-ND ) flickr photo shared by fanz