‘Just be a good girl, won’t you?’  ‘C’mon….why aren’t you being a good girl?’  ‘It’ll all be over soon, if you’re a good girl.’

Try not to let things get too heavy here on the blog, but today I’m angry. I feel positively possessed to pen this social commentary. As always, you don’t have to agree and your comments and thoughts are welcome.

Watched a movie over the weekend….Wind River. The movie’s topic is incredibly timely, as every day we witness sordid revelations about sexual harassment/abuse/rape of women. As the movie demonstrates, misogyny is a sin easily tolerated.

Every women who has lived into her sixth decade has stories. Tales of the too-friendly uncle whose octopus-y hugs lasted uncomfortably long. The condescending professor who made inappropriate remarks concerning your looks. Your friend’s husband who propositioned you at a Christmas party while she was in the next room. A co-worker you actively avoided in the office break room. It’s was a fact of life and a good girl rolls with it.

I’ve definitely got my #MeToo stories. I remember being a freshman in college in 1974. It was my first week at school and I attended (solo) a welcome mixer on campus. The nightmare ends with me narrowly escaping this menacing horn-dog’s dorm room. I was lucky to not be his rape victim. I was 17. I don’t remember any talk on campus of reporting behavior like his. I was young, overwhelmed and I didn’t know a damn thing. My hair stands on end today as I wonder how many women this overzealous brut might have abused. Perhaps his next target didn’t escape. My ‘head-in-the-sand’ ostrich behavior was wrong. I didn’t rock the boat. I was a good girl.

The dramas swirling the headlines today have the same basic plot:  gross abuse of power. It’s the movie mogul who systematically and repeatedly harasses women who star or want to act in his movies. He’s not content to simply abuse females, but he has the cash to hire lawyers to smear them and destroy their careers if they out him. This continues for years….other people know this is happening….very well-connected people, and no one says a bleepin’ thing! We can even hear this beast’s voice on tape cajoling his victim, ‘Oh….come on. Be a good girl. Don’t embarrass me in this hotel!’ Pervert.

It’s a former President abusing power by indulging his fancy for a certain White House intern. Don’t talk to me about it being consensual sex. That doesn’t alter the fact of the unbelievable imbalance of power in this sick relationship. Conjuring images of this young women crouching under the oval office desk servicing the President while he is on the phone, doesn’t speak of his undying commitment and respect for women. Hindsight is teaching us about this President and his pattern of abusing women through his early days as governor right through his ascension to the White House. Other people knew and other people did nothing. The young lady did nothing until she was forced to speak three years later. The media attacked her like rabid, hungry wolves. God bless her and I hold no ill-will of her, but was she a good girl? I think so.

It’s the actors, members of Congress (both parties!) and elite businessmen who abuse their female staff. Men who think it’s OK and perfectly reasonable to ask a woman to attend a meeting while they are in their underwear, or getting out of the shower or seriously in need of a massage. These are the power-crazed good-time-boys who want what they want when they want it:  anytime with no questions asked. The good girls are sucked in by promises of promotions or well-connected friendships or their own ignorance. Our current President has issues with his, ‘Grab em by the p***y!’ remarks. Hugh Hefner died recently. I say ‘good riddance’. Could never understand how placing a puffy rabbit tail on the backside of a female elevated her.

I’m not a feminist. I have no kinship to the women who identify as feminists. I feel the feminist movement is more about promoting a political agenda than it is about protecting the rights of all women. Feminists today only seem interested in protecting women of a certain political persuasion. Don’t believe me? Ask Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann or Sharyl Attkisson.

The only hope for solving this problem? We must make it safe for women to speak out against the horn-dogs. Not a year later. Not 5 years later. Not 40 years later, when the accusations can be chalked up to changing political or social ambitions.

I wish I could kick that college horn-dog in the nuts right now. I wish I had mustered the courage to tell every overly hand-sy guy to back off. I wish I had confidently proclaimed, ‘Your behavior is inappropriate.‘ Seems simple enough.

I want to teach my grand daughters it’s ok to be the outspoken girl. The ‘problem’ girl. The young lady who speaks truth to power. The girl who refuses to be harassed or abused. The girl who won’t trade on her looks. The girl unafraid to be accused of being a word rhyming with ‘witch’. A girl who believes and supports her friend when she returns from a date with a bloody lip and a black eye.

Change is coming. The good girl needs to go.