The Time I Shamed Another Woman and The Moment I Realized It and Changed my Mindset

I think one of the hardest things for us to do as a society is to admit when we are wrong. And I was wrong. It was a discussion I was having with some co workers about the then recent big news that Taylor Swift was suing a guy for touching her inappropriately while they were doing a promo photo in 2013. As a result, there was a very public legal battle as the radio host counter-sued feeling he was falsely accused. I shared my original opinions with my coworkers, which initially were that Taylor Swift as a public figure pranced around on television every day, self proclaimed to have numerous relationships and had the audacity to utilize the legal system to sue someone for touching her on the backside.

At the time, it seemed absolutely ridiculous to me. We then also talked about Cardi B, a female rap artist, having an altercation with a fan for inappropriately touching her in which I again was having a hard time understanding how one proudly shares stories of glamorous life of a stripper but has issues with someone touching her inappropriately. Note: I am not very proud of these opinions I formed, but I want to be honest!

So that was then. Later I thought about it and then there was this video that basically put women like me on blast for shaming other women and showed me that I was apart of the problem by what I said and how I was thinking. Now let me give you some background on myself and share with you why I changed my mind about how I felt about both Cardi B and Taylor Swift. As a young girl my daddy did not play. I could barely wear lip gloss at 16 and my mom was still trying to get me to wear stockings to church up until my senior year in high school. My dad didn't play that short skits, tight shirts and what not. I got joked on numerous days in high school for my baggy shirts and pants. Now when puberty hit there was not much my parents could do. I blossomed late, but oh so quickly. My boobs were huge in the 10th grade to my very small framed body and my hips, well they are still to die for and needless to say, I got a lot of attention. I did everything I possibly could to NOT draw attention to myself because at home, the message was, DON'T. But at school, well, the cutest boy I had a crush on was paying attention to me now, so, why not? I put two and two together and realized that how I looked was what got the attention of the boys and well, you know, that's that.

With that being said, I began to correlate how you put yourself out there and/or how you look with whether or not a man looks at you. My entire young adult life was spent convincing men I was more than just my banging hourglass shape and I was actually a smart intelligent individual. But truth be told, because I spent most of that time hiding, I figured that was the reason why men didn't really talk to me. I had my first real serious college boyfriend the summer before my sophomore year in college. All experiences with other men after that were null and void and my only reference was him. Being invisible to other men seemed to keep me in decent graces with my then boyfriend so I just figured staying out of the way equaled no attention.

But that is not necessarily true. My experience is ONE experience and truth be told NONE OF US deserve to be looked at, touched or approached simply because of the way we look. I knew that! There is, however, solid connection in how you are raised and your early experiences in life and how they affect you later on, especially in your thinking and your approach to others. Now what I think about is all of the times that I was groped, touched without consent and approached inappropriately by so many men in my past and I DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE IT WAS WRONG!

I can remember a time after a party at my dorm one night that I was so drunk I barely made it to my bed and the next thing I remembered at the time was one of the guys from the party was in my room and talking to me. I barely remember any of it, but now I do realize he shouldn't have been in there and bad things could have happened to me and I wouldn't have had a full understanding because I was so drunk.

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I say all of this to say, take away for helping professionals when working with youth and families who are different than you and who have different world views than you:

1) Admit when you are wrong and/or judgmental

2) Do some self reflection to realize when what you are saying is hurting other people

3) Find out where it comes from because when you get to the root of why you believe what you believe, then maybe you can help change someone's life by saying, I understand and I am sorry.

This my friends, is how we start thinking outside of the box. This is your transparent moment of the day, do with it what you will.