This isn't kindergarten. You don't get a Gold Star for valuing your discomfort more than women sharing their stories about daily aggressions upon their persons, small and large.
You don't get a Gold Star for not wanting to listen to what women are telling you and then completely agreeing with a man saying the same damn thing.
I know you want to be a good guy. We want you to be one too, but we're not going to do the work for you. It's not our job to try to get you on our side.
It's your job to give a damn, because women are dying. It's your job because your mother, your wife, your sister, your daughter, your friend live lives shaped by fear of assault.
It's your job to give a damn, because "rape" is accepted as "normal" in this society. It's your job because there are rape kits of four year olds. It's your job because there are rape kits of sixty seven year olds. It's your job because rape jokes are supposedly funny.
It's your job because over thirty years ago a young man looked at my year old daughter and said, "She's going to be something. Can't wait to get my hands on that." It's your job because boys and men are still looking at our daughters that way.
It's your job, because nearly 10,000 women a day can't escape from violence because of crippling budget cuts to Women's Shelters. And no one is talking about it! It's your job because our daughters and sons lives matter. It's your job because sexual harassment happens in high tech and low tech. It's your job because the right to be free, to be safe, to be a whole person, does not exist for half the world's population.
It's your job because when women speak their stories of harassment, rape, and violence, they are threatened with more of the same, silenced, or ignored. It's your job because you are a human being. It's your job because without good men, women being stoned to death won't be happening somewhere else.
It will be happening here.
Try harder