By Mark Antony Rossi

With all the sexual harassment cases piling up in the United States in the past few months you’d think Americans have lost all respect for the status of women.

I’m hoping not because we spend a great deal of time lecturing the Middle East about it’s treatment of women. We must prove to be better as free men in a free society where women have clearly shown equality is not a political football but rather a genuine reality.

Naturally too much of this obscene behavior is an open secret in Hollywood a place that lives to lecture America on how we are socially backward citizens fixed on judgmental religion. Yet its obvious poor treatment of racial minorities and subhuman actions against women are horrid indicators of an institution unable to practice what it fervently preaches.

There are common sense conduct lines easier drawn that should naturally prevent most of this lewd drama in the first place. But these are often ignored by men who feel their power threatened and believe there will be little accountability in their work environment. Sadly, they are usually right.

There is no demonic urge men cannot resist that forces them to solicit dating overtures at the work place. Or grab a body part or whisper something unbecoming in a full elevator. Nor do I subscribe to the notion that internet imagery, television or motion pictures reduce women to objects that men must possess at all costs. These are lame excuses at best and brainless justifications at worst.

The fault is with men who decline to appreciate their workaholic routines decrease personal time. This is a personal choice of men. Women in work places should not have to bear the male cost of socially constrictive decisions. Work is not a dating pool for dummies who forgot to have a life.

I also will not give any credence to men claiming societal changes are confusing and they are under attack. Women want to be more active in society, in decision making, in business, in the military and in government. If we are honest with ourselves so much of our upbringing revolved around powerful women who helped shape whom we are today.

We owe their integrity, their fidelity and their memory more than an unwanted pass at the water cooler or an unsolicited touch down the staircase. Without a complete cease and desist from this disrespectful thinking men will sabotage a civil society and replicate more of this reckless routine of treating women like a department store mannequin. Women have a firm understanding on how men think and see the world. Time is nigh to learn how women see the social landscape. Without learning to see what a woman sees—-men are condemned by foolishness to stare at the world with one eye.

About the Author: Mark Antony Rossi is a poet, playwright and author of the bioethics volume “Dark Tech” now available from Amazon. His most recent plays have been produced in Liverpool and New York.

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