Dear Editor:
I patiently stood in line on a rainy recent day at Virginia Beach City Hall. After a couple minutes, a hunched, thin guy ahead of me wearing a straw Fedora turned around and said:
“I was thinking about that Weinstein business. There was a time a man could ask a girl out and not worry about assault charges and stuff. Ha!”
And with that, he turned back around.
He meant Harvey Weinstein, until recently a Hollywood studio boss, now accused of sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape.
The man at City Hall did not pause to notice my cocked head, bewildered as I was about his comment from out of nowhere.
Granted, I barely felt human that day with a cold, but I was at least attired in traditional color-coded “chickware” that gave a clue I was a female – and of a certain age that I could maybe have had some experiences related to the topic at hand.
Had he looked at me just a moment longer, I could have nonchalantly said, “Well, you should treat a woman as you would want your daughter to be treated.”
But the man had said what he wanted to say, and the conversation was over.
I stared at the back rim of his hat. I thought of all kinds of things to say, but he had turned around.
He really wasn’t interested in my feelings about such things.
And there lies the answer with knowing how to behave around those of the opposite sex. If you don’t care what their answer is, chances are pretty good your actions are wrong.
— Denise Finkbeiner Holden, Virginia Beach
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