Equal Rights, Equal Lefts? What Will We Allow To Be The Norm In Our Future?
There is something we should be careful about.
Not because it is complicated.
Because it is simple.
We are becoming comfortable with violence when it is packaged as entertainment.
Open your phone and you will see men fighting women. Women fighting men. People filming instead of helping. People laughing. People cheering. People writing comments that say someone “got what they deserved.”
Then the next video comes.
And we watch that one too.
Somewhere along the way, we stopped asking whether something was right and started asking whether it was good for clicks.
That should concern us.
I have heard people say that if women want equal rights, they should accept equal treatment in a fight. Equal rights. Equal lefts.
It sounds clever.
But some things sound clever and are still foolish.
Equality before the law does not mean we should build a society where violence becomes the proof of equality.
I was raised with a simple rule.
You do not hit women.
Not because women are weak.
Not because men are always strong.
And not because women cannot be wrong.
You do not hit them because there are some lines a decent person chooses not to cross.
That rule was not perfect. Few rules are.
But it taught something important to young boys: strength carries responsibility.
When I was young, boys were expected to be careful with girls. If a boy got too rough, other boys stepped in. You pulled him away. You told him to stop.
Nobody called it oppression.
Nobody needed a equal rights center camera.
You simply knew there were things you did not do.
That seems almost old-fashioned now.
Perhaps it is.
But I wonder if we have thrown away too much of the old wisdom while trying to become more modern.
There is another problem.
A woman in a gym wears clothing that she is comfortable wearing. A man looks at her.
Looking is not the same thing as touching.
Looking is not the same thing as harassment.
Looking can be rude. It can be uncomfortable. It can make someone feel watched.
But we should be careful about turning every uncomfortable glance into proof of evil.
We need proportion.
We need judgment.
And we need to stop pretending that every conflict deserves a camera and an audience.
If someone is staring, speak to them.
If someone is harassing you, report it.
If someone crosses a real boundary, take action.
But humiliation is not justice.
And violence is not justice.
There is a dangerous lesson hiding inside all these videos.
Children are watching.
A boy watches a man hit a woman and sees thousands of people cheering.
Another boy watches a woman hit a man and sees thousands of people cheering.
He does not understand all the arguments about gender.
He sees the cheering.
He sees the laughter.
He sees the comments saying the victim deserved it.
And children learn what adults repeat.
That is how a terrible idea becomes ordinary.
First it is shocking.
Then it is funny.
Then it is common.
Then nobody remembers that it was once considered unacceptable.
That is how norms change.
Not always through laws.
Sometimes through repetition.
Sometimes through a thousand little videos.
Sometimes through people sitting safely behind a screen and deciding who deserved to be hurt.
I do not want that world.
I do not want boys growing up believing that hitting a girl is acceptable because she was rude.
I do not want girls growing up believing that hitting a boy is acceptable because he embarrassed them.
I do not want husbands telling themselves that they were only “standing their ground” after striking their wives.
I do not want wives telling themselves the same thing.
A violent act does not become noble because we change the gender of the person committing it.
And a person does not become deserving of violence because strangers on the internet have decided they are unpleasant.
There is a difference between defending yourself from immediate physical danger and choosing violence as punishment.
We should be capable of understanding that difference.
We should also be capable of admitting when a situation is complicated.
A man can be harassed.
A woman can be harassed.
A man can be assaulted.
A woman can be assaulted.
Both can be victims.
Both can be wrong.
Both can be decent people.
Both can behave badly.
Human beings are not hashtags.
And perhaps that is what bothers me most about the videos.
We take a complicated human moment and turn it into a thirty-second morality play.
Good guy.
Bad guy.
Victim.
Villain.
Like.
Share.
Comment.
Next video.
But real life does not end when the video ends.
There can be bruises after the cameras are gone.
There can be fear after the crowd has stopped laughing.
There can be children who remember what they saw.
There can be a family sitting at home wondering why everyone online thought violence was funny.
We should think twice before we applaud.
We should think twice before we share.
We should think twice before we write, “She deserved it,” or, “He deserved it.”
Because once you make violence entertainment, you have already surrendered something.
And once you teach children that violence is justified whenever someone has crossed a social line, you have planted something dangerous.
We should teach our sons to be strong without being cruel.
We should teach our daughters to be strong without being cruel.
We should teach both that dignity does not require domination.
That courage does not require violence.
That defending yourself is different from getting revenge.
And that being equal does not require becoming equally willing to hurt one another.
Equal rights should mean equal dignity.
Equal protection.
Equal responsibility.
Equal accountability.
It should not mean equal permission to become violent.
There was a time when a boy who saw a girl being treated roughly was expected to step between them.
Not because the girl was incapable.
Because the boy understood something about responsibility.
Maybe we need to teach that again.
Not that women need men to save them.
Not that men should never defend themselves.
But that human beings should not stand around cheering while another human being is being hurt.
The internet will tell us what gets attention.
It will reward outrage.
It will reward humiliation.
It will reward the fight.
But the internet does not have to decide what kind of people we become.
We still get to decide that.
Every time we watch.
Every time we share.
Every time we cheer.
Every time we refuse.
So ask yourself before you applaud the next fight:
Is this the world I want children to inherit?
Because the things we tolerate today become the examples they grow up with tomorrow.
And I do not want a world where the weekly hanging has simply become the weekly viral video.
I want a world where we are still strong enough to walk away.
Strong enough to protect someone without humiliating them.
Strong enough to defend ourselves without celebrating revenge.
And strong enough to remember that civilization is not measured by how loudly we can hurt one another.
It is measured by what we choose not to do when we have the opportunity.
That is where equality ought to begin.
Roy Dawson
Love, Earth Angel, Master Magical Healer, Singer, Songwriter, Poet, Prophet