Not Me

In our house growing up there were six children, plus a seventh ephemeral being known as "Not Me".
This entity (it had no gender) was invariably present whenever a wrongdoing had been detected - a broken cup, a busted lip, a stolen fiver. 
"WHO DID THIS?" 
"Umm [you guessed it], Not Me."

I am not about to fess up to a 35-year-old misdemeanour (though, yes, it was me who picked all the wallpaper off the wall). 

I want to put my hand up and say, instead of #MeToo, #NotMe.

I am one of the lucky ones, one of the minority (yay! another minority to be in! kudos).

I have never been assaulted, raped, beaten, psychologically disintegrated, molested or mentally tortured. 

But I know, personally and professionally, individuals who have endured all of these things. I have looked into the eyes of people who have been in fear of their lives because they were a victim, a target, an opportunity, a soft touch. 

I confronted a man who had committed a crime, though I was too young at the time to realise that's what it was. I was not his victim and I thought I was a heroine, swooping in to avenge on someone else's behalf. Looking back, all that happened was that he patronised me out of it, and I failed to report his sorry ass for using his position of power to abuse young women. He moved on.

I giggled when a very famous individual groped my knee - I was too giddy at the excitement of a bottle of under-age cider, and besides, he was just a drunken dirty old man with fancy French shirts and a big boat. I knew my father didn't vote for him anyway. 

I was less impressed when a pudgy, also-famous, fella decided to give me a big wet kiss on my cheek just because some football match had finished with a score that pleased him. But I was hardly going to make a big deal out of that now, was I? There I was, shouting Man On and Square Ball and Refereeeee! so I I was obviously into the whole thing, and as the only woman in the room I was surely going to offer up a cheek in celebration? Hardly worth getting my knickers in a knot over. 

And the point is, these are only minor transgressions in the scheme of things. They annoyed me, like wolf-whistles are annoying, or sniggers, or inappropriate jokes. These are the baseline. You do not get through life as a woman without some of these. 

There are the other grey-area ones, about consent, or not. There's always a few of those scattered around in the past. 

But I have been lucky, and I realise it. 

However, I cannot abandon those fear-filled eyes that have looked into mine. I cannot walk away from the bruised cheekbones, the crushed spirit, the defeat. 

I cannot join in with the "Erra don't mind your bloody Women's Day business. What about the poor men?" carry-on. 

I don't want to see that fear in anyone's eyes, male or female. I don't want to hear about relentless emotional abuse and degradation from anyone, male or female. 

It just so happens, that in 18 years of doctoring, the majority of those eyes have belonged to women.