To all men posting criticisms of Oprah soon after the speech she gave at the Golden Globes please there are some of us women who find it difficult to hear you at this moment. There are some of us women who don’t want to hear you at this moment. There are some of us women who do not need your intellectual critique of Oprah, the posts you post on imperialist feminism, on Oprah’s politics, her capitalist imperialist dangerous mentality, pictures of her with Harvey Weinstein, your anger that yet another Hollywood celebrity thinking they can run for the Presidential position. We understand your critique and some of us agree with you but that’s not the point and now’s not the time.
Some of us women need to know you’ve heard the message. That you are brave, strong enough to show us and the world that you’ve heard and honour the message. We need you to understand violence against women is not just a women’s issue in fact its primarily a man’s issue. Some of us women need you to validate, affirm, acknowledge, stand and act in solidarity of this message. We need you to listen. Please lets not forget why Oprah was up there in the first place speaking truth to a world that shares this epidemic of male violence that takes many forms.
We just need you to humble, to hear, to honour the message even if you don’t agree or dislike or have been critiquing the messenger, Oprah for a long time. Please just give some of us a chance, as there are many of us women who visibly need this message to be honoured by men because we too are me too’s. And there are many of us who need to know that your commitment to fighting gender justice is priority and we need you to shout this publicly in whatever form that takes whether its from your social media, from public forums, office meetings, stages of all kinds, announced and spread at whatever platform you might be privy to.
And yes I recognize women are also critiquing the messenger, Oprah but somehow it hits me so much harder hearing it from men at this time.