Women: Also realize that men are angered by inappropriate behavior, too.
We also need to realize that most men are our allies. They are angered by the misogynistic or inappropriate behavior that has made so many women cautious in the first place. Indeed, one of the crucial impacts of the #MeToo movement was opening the eyes of well-intentioned men to just how much that behavior still happened today. (You can read one of my posts about that here.)
Yet many men have always been sensitive to that behavior – and angered and saddened by it. One older man replied to the “suitcase blog” this way:
Possibly because of my age (I’m 68), I believe most women would not be offended by a gesture to help. (I seem harmless in terms of “MeToo.”) When I was younger, I was more cautious, especially with women at work because, being in C-suite roles, I was almost always their superior. I am saddened that some bad men caused that change.
So, all this said… what should men do? What is the path forward?