Dear Men,
This is very important and slightly long, but this is for every single one of us, so read till the very end.
Men, this movement will be incomplete if we don’t call ourselves out.
Have we never been in instances where we felt that we might have made a woman feel uncomfortable, but that instance felt like too casual a thing to ask?
Can we not recall all the times where we have been part of conversations back in school that involved slut shaming, misogyny, unnecessary sexism and what not?
Have we never made jokes in our ‘boys gang’ about ex girlfriends, friends, people we know and wondered that if someone else heard this conversation how highly inappropriate that could be?
Isn’t it so embarrassing and humiliating to realize that you were not so woke after all?
But you know what? It’s about time this made us feel ashamed. If we’re calling people out, we need to start with ourselves, with all the times we went wrong, with all the times a line was crossed.
We are an ever evolving species, in a constant process of improving ourselves, to become better people. Nobody is perfect. But it’s important for us to know about our mistakes and grow from them. We need to be made aware of every time we’ve gone wrong and we need to be reminded of this repeatedly for such things to not happen again.
Today, we need to call ourselves out, hold ourselves accountable for our actions and be made aware of every time we might have made someone feel uncomfortable.
So men, ask your female friends to text you if you’ve ever made them feel uncomfortable. Learn from their perspective of such incidents, understand the difference between your intent and the impact it had on them.
These small actions, may not have caused major damage to the other person, perhaps, many might have even forgotten about them, but it is such actions and incidents that could lead to something worse, some other day. Let’s not take that chance, for the sake of every woman in the world.
It’s so important, that we turn this movement to our advantage as well, by learning from all our shortcomings and promise ourselves and all the women in our lives to grow and improve.
Men, do not shy away from being called feminists, wear that tag on with pride, be an ally to all those who have been through something. If you have been on the other end of such incidents, accept your mistakes, apologize, face the consequences, introspect, hold yourself accountable for every ‘drunken night’ or ‘casual text’ or ‘flirty comment’ or ‘friendly touch’
Let us come out of this movement as less shittier people.
Dear Men, it is about time we broke the silence and joined this struggle, before it’s too late.
Time’s up.
(This letter was first published on author’s Facebook profile.)
