Different times

What a year it has been for women.  Women finally feel empowered to publicly say enough is enough while pointing directly at the inexcusable behavior they have witnessed or at something that has happened to them.  We are living in a different time.  Women who have kept abuse under wraps for decades are finally speaking out.  It is about time and to not believe them is appalling.  It takes a lot of courage to step out of the shadows.

Over the past decade, countless women have started businesses.  A record number of women are running for office.  Women have stopped turning a blind eye but speaking up forcing companies cultures to change.  How the many mighty has fallen….and I am sure there will be more to come.

Powerful men have abused their power and to believe that they are invincible is over.  That has changed.  We can no longer as a society continue to dismiss bad behavior, period.  A new generation is coming up the ranks.  When these women were growing up, they were told that they could be anything that they wanted to be.  The world was their oyster.  They are righteous.  Everything is black and white, there is no grey area when it comes to equality.  Everyone, regardless of their gender, deserves the same pay, the same respect, the same opportunities.  If you don’t believe we are there, trust me, that is definitely where we are headed.

There will always be women who marry for money and power as there will always be the men who want to be in those relationships.  That is life.  What is different is that we can now call a spade a spade anywhere.

I was at a wedding last weekend where I spoke to a woman in her 70’s.  I asked her what she thought about the #metoo movement.  She is a smart independent woman who might have had a very different career if she was born today.  Her answer said it all.  She said it is about time.  We used to just look the other way because that was how it was.  It shouldn’t be.

The time has come for every woman to be able to speak up at the moment.  It is time for everyone particularly men to support those women even it is means turning against your fellow bro.

 

Comments (Archived):

  1. awaldstein

    Important topic.Listened to this interview on a bike ride and it hit home, how women are realizing that this is wrong as culturally it was not really back when and that is a powerful shift.https://www.npr.org/2018/09…And got to hope as I read this and then listen to the Republicans pushing the Supreme Court nomination that they as relics of a worse time are shown the door, as they should be.

    1. Gotham Gal

      Let’s hope so

      1. awaldstein

        lot’s of ‘hope so’s’ lately from both of us. always makes me nervous.

  2. CCjudy

    https://uploads.disquscdn.c… This is men and women students at Yale Law School in protest of the Kavanaugh push through. I think the young people will not allow what has happened is happening to continue…

    1. Gotham Gal

      Agree. The old white men in our Senate should take note

    2. PhilipSugar

      They have done more to hurt women than anyone else. I won’t mentor outside the company anymore I won’t go out and shoot the shit casually. I won’t have confidential important conversations that need the door closed.Why. What is my risk for no reward??? I was willing to pay it forward. Scared now. 30 years of building tech companies. Most important thing I thought to bring it forward. Don’t want to get convicted before even a hearing.

  3. LE

    The time has come for every woman to be able to speak up at the moment. It is time for everyone particularly men to support those women even it is means turning against your fellow bro.Is that possible in most cases? I am thinking that your average corporate executive is not going to chance his career and livelihood going down the drain in order to ‘do the right thing’. Most men are not going to want to come home (or women) and say ‘hey I just lost my job or that promotion but I did the right thing’. Are they? [1] Most people have expenses and need to consider how what they do will impact their finances.And politics? It’s ‘you scratch my back and I will scratch yours’. You need others support for your pet project and the only way to get that often is to make a deal with the devil. Anyone who goes in to politics and thinks what is right and smart will win out will be very surprised. You need the cooperation of others to get things done. I mean you see this anytime you get a group of people and have to vote. Even on condo boards.This doesn’t mean I don’t agree with what you are saying. My daughter had a bad situation at her job recently with what I will call ‘a New York kinda guy’. Total abusive co-worker. She reported it to HR. They spoke to him. Now he is giving her the cold shoulder and her enemy. Not a good situation. And this was at a firm that is hired for crisis management. And they weren’t even able to get the guy (also young btw) to cop a good attitude.[1] This was actually a theme in the movie (with Russel Crowe) ‘The Insider’ about the tobacco industry. And the character that played his wife (based on a true story whatever is ‘true’ in Hollywood) said something like ‘oh now we won’t be able to be members at the country club!’.

  4. Pointsandfigures

    Read these if you canhttp://www.chicagotribune.c…http://www.startribune.com/…DC events look like a charade compared to that

    1. Gotham Gal

      wow.

      1. Pointsandfigures

        “It will threaten even those who don’t give two figs for politics and see all such talk as lies told by knaves to fools.What we are seeing are founding American principles being swept — among them the presumption of innocence and the rights of the accused — to feed the appetites of power politics”http://www.chicagotribune.c…The question is, where does it stop and which party is willing to cede power to save the republic? Biden in 1992 instituted the Biden Rule. Harry Reid killed the filibuster and that allowed Mitch McConnell to hold up Garland and push through judges. We know where it’s going but it’s hard to stop the merry go round. If Dems were to gain control of both houses of Congress I feel like they would impeach Trump, impeach Kavanaugh, and maybe Gorsuch. At that point, which state secedes and where does it stop? Mob rule always ends in a totalitarian state. Democracy always ends in chaos which is why we have a “democratic republic”.