#allapologies

Harvey Weinstein is no longer an alleged rapist. He is a convicted rapist. After thirty years of allegations and eighty women making those allegations against him, the former king of Hollywood is headed to jail. Even as his lawyers decry the unfair conditions under which their client was found guilty, and Harvey stumbles out of the courtroom clutching at his chest, what seems like justice has finally been done.
One man. Eighty accusers. Thirty years. And yes, this could be the breakthrough for which our culture has been waiting. Or maybe it's just an aberration, the outlier. With all this toxic masculinity lying around here in heaps reminiscent of a sanitation workers' strike, what expectations should we have moving forward?
The other day I made a quiz out of the misogynist quotes from two of our current seventy-eight year old candidates for President: Donald J. Trump and Michael J. Bloomberg. I don't actually know what Mister Bloomberg's middle initial is, but it seems appropriate to give him the same one as our "president" because they seem to share so much. Especially when it comes to women. I had to look up "the male equivalent of misogyny." What I landed on was "misandry." That's the combination of Greek roots misos (hate) and andros (man). You can find examples and articles expressing this relatively new and somewhat obscure sentiment. And sometimes it gets lumped in with Feminism. Which shouldn't be.
Because the truth is that men are better at hating men than women are. Men are better at hating women. Men are better at hate. Which should send some folks scurrying about searching for examples of women who are hateful, but these would most certainly be the exceptions that prove the rule. Getting others down and keeping them down is a male habit that is a fact in our patriarchy. The assertion that strong women are ugly is one of those bizarre non-equivalencies that drive this machine. There is a wealth of information found in the fact that our "president" didn't attend or judge a beauty pageant. He owned one. Objectifying women keeps them in a place where they can be furniture. Replaceable. Interchangeable. Seen but not heard.
Eighty women were finally heard this past week. It gave one man heart palpitations. Maybe the answer to hate is as simple as listening. No need to have a heart attack over that.