“The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike…” If you are out in that rain you will get wet! The wave of women (and some men) coming out to reclaim their voices and their lives by saying out loud #MeToo, ending years and decades of silence about sexual abuse, assault and harassment has our nation and its male dominated culture facing a long overdue reckoning. The patriarchy and all of its systems, institutions, policies and practices is the direct target of the long overdue rage of women who have endured its systematic reign and rule for their entire lifetime and the lifetimes of their mothers and grandmothers before them. Time is supposed to bring about change and yet in the case of women and girls, that change has been so slow, at times it appears to be non-existent. For women to STILL be making less than a man for the same job with the same job qualifications is absurd and flies in the face of what has become a national cliché, “Equal rights for ALL.”

The economic system intentionally keeps women beneath men and feeds directly into how society values them, which indirectly contributes to how women value and/or perceive themselves as compared to men.  Women and girls continue to be diminished and treated as objects to be used by or to facilitate the ascension of male dominance simply because of sex and/gender roles and practice. Keeping women economically dependent is but one of the functions of the patriarchal system that contributes to the objectification, marginalization, and oppression of women within our culture.  However, it is the one that could bring the tower tumbling down and one might argue that the #MeToo Movement is the perfect catalyst to bring that power structure to its knees in the face of scandalous behaviors, abuse of power and actual assault. The bastion of economic male dominance is under attack because as women continue to speak truth to power and STAND in the public forum to proclaim their stories about years and decades of sexual deviancy, assault, harassment and male privilege without any accountability, these men are getting hit where it hurts them most, right in their pocketbook. They are losing their jobs, their reputations, their prestige and positions of power because they did not see the personhood and autonomy of the women and girls with whom they interacted. What they saw were objects to be used for their pleasure and design. They felt entitled and enabled to take advantage of their position and their power and now women have decided to empower themselves by coming together to support one another and to speak their individual truths of abuse, assault and fear.

The #MeToo Movement has just begun and it will take down many more before its wave begins to recede.  The Truth must be told and this nation must CHANGE because Justice, Freedom and Equality demand it. Men will no longer be allowed to get away with what they have always done because of the brave women who will no longer remain silent.