Another startling revelation in the news. Another accusation, admission or denial of sexual abuse. There is dizzying awe at recent, vile revelations of gender inequalities, assault and sexual discrimination among celebrities, politicians and public figures. We learn only now the depth of the horror that has existed for decades in social silence.

Of course, it is not just women being treated badly by men, but mostly.

What is perhaps saddest, though understandable, is that women themselves have been silent and unable to speak out: hundreds of female Olympic gymnasts molested by one doctor, those young women unsupported by all those surrounding them; actors victimized by distorted power dynamics; a president who leads a national deafness to women who speak their truth.

I have observed, too, women treating women poorly, as well, and am disgusted by the women in a government administration who seem to betray their positions, at least as women are concerned, supporting the pusillanimity of a unprincipled administration.

It makes me question many things that have been part of my own upbringing, not just familial, but societal as well. However, the doubt leaves me somewhat confused, too.

How angry should I be while dining at a local restaurant with a relative, pregnant in her ninth month, when a waitress reaches out and rearranges the bangs on her forehead? Undoubtedly, the waitress acted in love, kindness and the bigoted, antediluvian belief that women “in the family way” — weak and helpless — should be closeted, coddled and cosseted.

Do I speak up in her defense? Would doing so disempower her or further any power imbalance and deny her the option of speaking up for herself? But I am stunned, speechless at the transgression of personal boundaries from a server, a stranger. A woman.

I say nothing. Was I a coward for being silent?

Another restaurant, another waitress pleasantly fawns over my (still-pregnant) relative, and then still another waitress comes to our table and openly speaks of my relative’s personal body situation, i.e. her pregnancy.

I find it stunningly rude, but it is not my body. Yet it is my witness. I, myself, find this self-sexism exceedingly uncomfortable. Do I have a right to any opinion at all? How are these casual assumptions of past generations on the part of these women still considered acceptable?

Once again I am silent and, once again, wondering if I am a coward.

In some very small way these happenings help me understand the silence of women who have been abused. One is just so stunned that it happened, perhaps not even realizing that it is rude, horrible, intolerable, yet was once accepted and acceptable.

Now, days after these events, I still question if my silence was complicity, complaisance or cowardice.

For myself, as a child, and later as an adult, I didn’t realize that experiences in childhood were sexual abuse. I didn’t even remember the events until in my 30s, when, as artistic director of a theater company, I was commissioned by Advocates for Children of Lewiston to create and mount a performance for children about abuse. In the ensuing research for the project, the realization of my own childhood victimization erupted from the darkest shadows of my soul.

Today, if anything long-lasting is to come of the current #MeToo movement, it should be — it must be — for everyone to question his or her place in the silence; to condemn behavior that was accepted then, but was always unacceptable; to rebuke the denigration and diminishment of women and men who courageously speak of their own darkest shadows.

We must listen. We must believe. Anything less is, without question, cowardly.

After several careers, most recently as a behavioral health therapist, Lew Alessio is retired. He lives in Greene with his husband Jim Shaffer.

Lew Alessio

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