Meghan Kelly, Gretchen Carlson and Me..... By Diane Ogden

Sexual harassment is as old as time.   It moves swiftly unnoticed and is also as quiet as time.  You don't have to be beautiful to have it happen to you.  Although it happens more if you are. Sexual harassment or abuse began for me at age fifteen in my doctors office by my doctor himself.  No names.  And his harassment continued and or returned when I was in my early twenties.  Also, a local High School Principle.  A Jr. High History teacher. And most of the boys in school....and  Date raped later in teen years.  Who does a girl learn to trust regarding men?  Hit on by my bosses, (give (someone) orders in a domineering manner. A person in charge)  most of my life.  Cornered in elevators, cars, planes, boats, elevators, bars, movie theaters, under a tree at night by the groundskeeper.  And the list goes on.  And on.  With age, a lot of "aging".... I learned how to curb it, how to escape it, how to hit it head on, and how to live with it and through it.
                                                              (In this photo I was 14 or 15 years old)

Sexual harassment is someone exercising unwanted verbally controlling comments and or actions  over another.  In this blogpost, Me.   Some (usually men) would say we women put ourselves in situations that asked for such behavior. Or we wear/wore clothing that says it okay to be sexually harassed or abused.  Bullshit for the most part anyway.  Maybe some women do but most do not.  I was basically a child with no idea how to deal with such a strong force of nature: hormonal men. Was that love? Well, that was my initial meeting with the opposite sex now wasn't it.  And shame on them. A doctor, a H.S. Principle,(not the principle where I went to school) and a history teacher, the dentist, the leader of the band, the fire chief (Not from my home town)!!  In watching the news this week and Meghan Kelly on Dr. Phil.....And Gretchen Carlson on 20/20... GOD I was just a child compared to their stories.  Meghan Kelly was a strong woman in a strong position, yet she couldn't and didn't handle it properly.... or was afraid to.  Look at all the women, try like 50!! That Dr. Huxtable, alias, Bill Cosby crossed the line with!!  And he is getting away with it.  Then there is Trump the hump....and so on and so on.  All the way back to Thomas Jefferson and Bill Clinton.  Under the desk with a rubber hose...NO NO that was John Travolta and Kotter!  What was I thinking?  We all know what I was thinking..... Cigars and blow jobs in the Oval Office.

I tried to teach my daughter and Granddaughters that men need a home for "hairy."  Most will say and do anything to get that home for "Hairy!"  I have also taught them that every time they hear the roar of a Harley.....it is a man straddling a woman (his Harley) legs spread, sitting in a power position, revving the engine like it is the orgasm he dreams of... Loud and engaging and all powerful.  All the things he probably is not in true life.

I have also taught them about the other man.  The good man.  He may have a gay side....which simply means he remembers flowers, compliments, is able to think partially like a woman to an acceptable degree...  He understands her feelings, her decorating issues, her magazines.... and many of her why's and needs. He isn't ALL MALE testosterone...  Rather he cares, loves, feels what she feels more than most men and most of all if he doesn't he pretends to as he smiles and holds her tenderly.  The farther-est thing from sexual harassment on earth.

I wasn't taught that, but then most little girls from the baby boomer generation were not taught that. We were to cook, clean, love our husbands no matter what, tend the children, and clean the house and do the laundry and do not complain no matter what.  Then suddenly we were thrown into the work force where men ruled.  They thought they ruled us, and they did for many decades.  In fact those old cronies haven't all died off yet.  Nor have their old thoughts and ways. 

Do not let me leave out the religious freaks.  The ones that believe the man rules the roost.  Whether he has he sense to or not.  They used God.  Some, no most of those thought that gave them the right and freedom to do whatever they chose to their wives or women.  When the woman went crazy during menopause they would pray and that is all they would do!!  My least favorite of all men..... God would never treat his women followers as those religious husbands did and do.

My Point:  I have been sexually harassed all my life.  IT feels Unclean. Wrong.  Dirty.  Outofline. Ungodly. Intrusive. Overbearing. Controlling.  Abusive.  Ill- legal. Disgusting. Unhealthy. Frightening. And at my adult age now....Pissed off!!!  Why do they continue to get away with it....  ??

I have more I could share from my life experiences of sexual harassment  but it isn't necessary....  Too scary to share as our society tends to have become more gladiator type arena's then I could ever have imagined.  I don't wish to be stoned or put in the arena with a lions.  I have already experienced that with men...

Not that I have never met a few good ones.  I have.  Those are the ones that don't touch rather they FEEL with their hearts.  Girls.... watch for those men.  The Good Men with their heart and their head and their penis as one!!  Few and far between but they are out there.