He was having a bad day.
His intentions were not malicious.
She was walking alone at night.
Excuses, excuses, excuses.
Delaina Yaun, Yong-Ae Yue, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Hyun Jung Grant, Paul Andre Michels, Soon Chung Park, and Suncha Kim, who died on Tuesday, should still be alive. The women sexually harrassed by Governor Andrew Cuomo should have never even had to come forward with those experiences. Sarah Everard should have arrived at home that night. This is what the reality of the past few weeks should be. But it’s not.
Yet still – we rush to cradle and protect the men who caused this dark reality. Why? Why would we give a racially motivated mass murderer a free pass? How about a sexual harasser? Or a homicidal kidnapper?
But he had a sexual addiction – he wasn’t thinking straight.
But he’s the governor of New York – he’s friendly, that’s just how he is.
But he was a police officer – and she shouldn’t have been walking home alone.
Enough is enough. Our society is built upon a complex of masculinity that undermines the reality of female power. Buried deep are the voices of women that scream, whisper, cry, or shout for their truths to ring out through the layers of excuses.
Men must be comfortable with putting in the work to peel away these layers. They’ve got to have the tough conversations with one another. It’s time they stop standing by, oblivious to the words and actions of the men around them. Robert Long’s former roommate said he had noticed Long’s patterns of inappropriate behavior. Yet he did nothing.
Us women have put in the work. We put in the work every day, and we will continue to put in the work. But until men hold each other accountable, we’ll continue to have to contemplate what should be. It’s time to put in the work so we can see what reality could be.