North Country

[NickOtani]

It is also a movie worth seeing, one that makes us think of the issues. This time, it is sexual harassment. It's a movie, like Norma Ray, about one person against the herd, until others begin to stand with her.

I know that women have it rough in some environments. I've been in the Army and saw changes over the years, from when Drill Sergeants taught us about our M16s by comparing them to women, saying that if we treat them nice, stroke them gently, they will respond for us the way we want them to. We sang dirty lyrics in our cadence chants, like “between her legs, she wore a bloody rag. …” I worked in bars where women were constantly objectified. And, I’ve worked in a steal foundry, around big machines and dirt and heat, where we had to wear steel toed shoes and hard hats.

I’ve seen women cry when they see something nasty written about them on the walls. On the other hand, I’ve also seen them given nice clean jobs and paid the same as men who do the dirty work. I’ve seen things go too far in the other direction, where some female got offended by a picture on a calendar, so now all the magazines in the lobby have only pictures of animals and landscape, not people.

Yes, women have a right not to be attacked and not be coerced. They have a right to be respected, not joked about and objectified, but they have to be a little tough, not so easily offended in the workplace. Where we draw the line and how things should be worked out is still being worked out. This movie helps to raise our consciousness about this issue.

Bis bald,

Nick