Me Too Tradition
* There is some disturbing sexual content in this blog. If this is something that can be triggering to you please check in to see if this is something you will feel safe reading.
I sat down last night to write a blog in preparation for my weekly newsletter. I was real jazzed about what I was writing about (sneak peak it was about yoga), when I got a message from a potential client. So in between writing to you all I was writing to this man who was asking about my business, the services I offer, and how I help people. Which is all very standard when someone is writing to me in an introductory way.
Then it happened.
This man asked me to mutually masturbate him as a form of yoga.
I was shocked. How can it be after so many years of advocating and fighting for feminism, after the me too movement, after sensitivity training in the corporate workplace, that this could just so casually happen.
As a survivor of sexual abuse my go to when something like this happens is to feel numb and shut down. Unfortunately there are certain people that are more likely to receive advances like this, and I am one of those people. So then after having had traumatic experiences you have constant small similar experiences throughout your life. Reminders that pull you into the terror and loss of power of those moments.
Instead of shutting down after this man propositioned me, I asked him to please be respectful of myself and my business.
He countered by offering me “a bunch of money”.
I promptly reported him to Instagram and blocked him.
This time I do not feel numb, I feel angry. Angry that in stepping out as a business woman I would be somehow making myself vulnerable towards people that did not see me as a person but as a sexual device for their bidding. I do not deserve this, no one deserves this. My kindness and openness is not an invitation for sexual advancement, nor do I offer any kind of services that could be even remotely be misconstrued as such.
I followed up with Instagram today to find out what they actually do when a person is reported for sexual misconduct. THERE IS NO ANSWER ANYWHERE IN THEIR HELP SECTION! There is no accountability for follow up in this world wide social tool. There are hundreds of answers to other questions that are menial and mundane but nothing about the actual work of restoration or keeping people safe in this way.
This is why women still make less money in the same professions as men. This is why women choose to stay in the home, or forgo potential career advancements, because this is what awaits them. We are seen as not having worth beyond our physical body and so thus the work we try to do in the world is undervalued.
This is not flattering in any way. I have dealt with a lifetime of this kind of garbage and I would have hoped that the world would have been a better place for my daughters in this way. And it’s not. That makes me sad as a business person, as a woman, and as a mother. If you are reading this and you are mad too then I encourage you to call Instagram and leave them a voice mail like I did demanding to know what they do when things like this are reported and hold them accountable. The number is: (650) 543-4800. The reality is they will do nothing unless they feel external pressures that will hold them accountable.
So I will end this blog post. No less in love with the world than I was yesterday, and no less in love with the good work that I do in the world on a daily basis. It just seems now that I have one more battle to fight, and I hope that you will join me in it. Because we can change the world when we do the work together.
