Here we were about 12 people sitting in contentment having just eaten a delicious Thanksgiving dinner. It’s unusually cold at 11 degrees outside and we are sitting in the warm glow of candles, laughter, wine and very full bellies.
A woman (let's call her Xx) begins telling a story sort of laughing in disbelief as she tells. One night recently at 11:30PM she slowed down but not to a full stop and rolls though a stop sign at a deserted intersection. Moments later a cop is behind her with flashing lights and she is pulled over and given a ticket for $175.
She is a single mother struggling to hold her life together even in the most basic ways so this ticket is no small hit for her. Her boyfriend is a lawyer and tells her to claim “not guilty” on the ticket and that he will take care of it. He shows up at the appointed court date and before their appointed time, tells the prosecutor that the policeman hit on her and that this ticket was given because she refused him. The ticket is dismissed.
When I hear this story, I’m so torn. Like everyone else at the table I was taken with the telling of it and wanted to be on Xx’s side. Firstly I feel the injustice of what this policeman did and feel angry on her behalf. Granted, police need to do due diligence and pulling her over and giving her a warning or even a $40 ticket makes good sense but a ticket for $175 was unnecessary and maybe even a misuse of power. In light of this I feel glad that he didn’t get away with this, police should be helping people not penalizing unnecessarily nor for profit, right?
But then I think about Xx’s lawyer boyfriend’s choice to lie about the policeman hitting on Xx in order to get her relieved of this ticket.
The impact and repercussions of this run through my mind - could this ruin his career in some way? Yes he is should be reprimanded for what he did, but not what he didn't do. And I worry about the women who have actually been hit on and been the victims of sexual harassment and the larger impact of women being believed about sexual abuse, intimidation and rape. So often women aren’t believed with devastating results.
Lying about issues of sexual abuse is also a misuse of power I worry that it can undermine everyone else who is telling the truth. When a woman - or a man in this case - lies about this it can add fuel to the undervaluing and dismissal of what comes from a woman.
This is a very small example of a much larger issue and according to one man present at that meal who I spoke with the next day, it was just not a big deal and that he hadn't given it another thought. It was one injustice for another. Maybe he is right, but I wonder, where is the line in abuse of power, how large does it have to be before it's worth mentioning?
I also consider that no one at the table said anything. Did anyone feel easy about it or like me did they feel uncomfortable? Did they feel that it wasn’t worth bringing up for fear of offending?
In the moment I couldn’t think of a way to speak up gracefully and without the potential of my words shaming Xx or disrupting the dinner party so I didn’t, but in truth this kind of situation makes me wish I knew how to. I would have liked to hear how everyone else felt when hearing this story. Maybe it’s benign enough to have sparked a conversation of substance where both men and women can share and be heard about a taboo and difficult topic?
I crave conversations about hot topics that I care deeply about but I am not always sure how to do it without destroying an evening. Life makes more sense to me when I feel permission to discuss such topics one-to-one and in a group.
I hope to learn and become better at navigating this and instigating discussions where varying points of view can be heard and explored because I believe that I’m not the only one starved for meaningful discourse on the mishegoss of life these days!
Love to hear your point of view on both the misuses of power and whether it’s possible to discuss hot topics gracefully at a dinner party? What does reading this bring up for you? Have you ever been in a disaster of a conversation or a particularly successful one and what made it so?
