Dear Dad,

A new year is here bringing lots of hopes and dreams for a better future. I hope this new year is better than the one that just ended, because that year — 2017 — was a pretty bad one for us guys. Let me explain. It all started with the election of a President who is controversial to say the least. Even though this guy’s a Republican like you, I can’t imagine you would like him. Our new President has made no effort to hide his disrespect for women. He even bragged about making sexual advances on them and coming into their dressing room unannounced. He’s said a lot of other things that have made people angry, even members of his own party.

Then came accusations of sexual abuse and inappropriate behavior leveled against a powerful and well-known Hollywood producer. This guy had a reputation for being very liberal, but it turns out he was mistreating many of the women with whom he worked, often forcing them to give him sexual favors and threatening their careers if they didn’t comply. That opened a floodgate of similar accusations against a wide range of powerful men in show business, politics, the arts, and TV broadcasting. The women making the accusations became united by a simple slogan: “Me Too.” Some of the accused men have pushed back, denying the accusations. While it’s possible a few of them are innocent, the scale of this movement makes it clear that far too many women have been putting up with disrespectful, abusive, sometimes even criminal behavior from men for a long time. I even discovered that a former colleague of my mine at the Ohio Department of Education had to deal with sexual harassment. A State Board of Education member kept asking her for dates even after being told no, and a high-level leader invaded her privacy with questions about her sex life.

You’ll be happy to know that no accusations of sexual abuse have been leveled against me, and in a way, I have you to thank for that. You taught me early on to respect women, starting with my own mother. When I was foolish enough to mouth off to her, there were painful consequences. (I can still taste that bar of Dial soap even to this day.) There were different — but still painful –consequences for me later in my teenage years when you learned I was whistling at girls in the neighborhood. (They weren’t impressed and neither were you.)

When I got old enough to date, you instructed me to be a gentleman. That meant more than just holding doors open for girls and helping them on with their coats. It also meant leaving them alone if they said they didn’t want to go out with me. You didn’t bother telling me not to spread nasty rumors about girls because you knew I wouldn’t do that anyway. Unfortunately, some guys do spread rumors … and worse. Guess they didn’t have a dad like you.

You believed women deserved respect because of their valuable role as homemakers and because they usually are physically weaker than males. While those beliefs still have merit, I have discovered quite a few other reasons to respect them. They can be visionary leaders, loyal friends, amazing artists, inspiring teachers, helpful teammates, skilled professionals, and so much more. And something else I’ve found. When a man respects a woman and treats her as an equal, she returns that respect to him. I found that out at the Ohio Department of Education, at Columbus State, in my different writers’ groups, and on the 1Girl Programming Committee. When you think about that, it’s no big surprise.

So here’s hoping 2018 is a better year for our gender than 2017. If that’s to happen, good men — men like you — will need to join with women in putting an end to the abuses they have endured for too long.

Say hi to Mom and Claire for me.

Your son,

Clay