Strap in for the rant of your life.
In class today, my professor decided that we watch a film. This film was the groundbreaking case that launched a class action suit against a mining company located near a small town in Minnesota. This film is called “North Country.”
If you haven’t seen the movie, it is about a woman that sued the mining company, Eveleth Taconite Company for repeated acts of sexual harassment. This was only just under thirty years ago that laws for sexual harassment were even considered. The film was graphic and blunt about the type of harassment that occurred in the workplace for women just starting off in the mines. The movie was hard to watch, and there were scenes that made me sick to my stomach.
Let me just say right off, right now…that I am proud of the man that I have become. I am also proud of every man who respects women, honors them, cares for them. I respect ANY man who does not lay a finger on a woman when he is angry or jazzed [to put it delicately]. Any man who advocates for woman in the workplace, because it does still happen today, is a hero in my book.
I have to say that I am speechless and have no words to adequately describe what I’m feeling right now. There is Anger, resentment, shame, and rage for every piece of scum that has treated women as lower, worthless, trash. I serve a God who still loves them, and that is the truth. Tough to swallow? Yeah, you could say that. I also feel pride in men who know better, do better, and act better. Who stand for what is right, who don’t let wrong go unseen. Men who hold virtue and chivalry as core tenants to being a man. Tenants that have gone by the wayside with some men.
If you are a man, and you are reading this…I recommend that you watch this film. I find it imperative that you expose yourself to the message that this film has to offer, and I hope that it moves you into action as it has for me. I also want to extend out deep sympathy if you are reading this and have been sexually harassed in the workplace. If this has happened to you, and you find yourself wordless, please let someone know. You are not alone.
RESOURCES: http://tinyurl.com/cpbjeql (sexual harassment support thread)
http://www.illinoissexualharassmentattorneyblog.com/sexual_harassment/
http://www.theharassmentlaw.com/harassment-in-illinois.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Country_(film)
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