Good-Bye To All That- What Does the Age of #MeToo Have To Do With The People Living Hand To Mouth?

 When the #MeToo movement started I was glad to see it; to see accountability for so much bad and abusive behavior. But did it go far enough? To me it seems it stalled before it made any real changes. I mean I'm sorry-somewhat for Hollywood actresses whose careers stalled because they ran afoul of uber creep and abuser Harvey Weinstein but what about women outside of Hollywood? What about women who live pay check to pay check and don't work in glamorous jobs?

I don't want to negate the feelings and experiences of women who work in the entertainment business because hey trauma is trauma and they worked to build up careers that were struck down by the Weinstein brothers. But couldn't these women still have had careers in up and coming directors films for less money? Could they have become acting coaches or produced their own films? I don't know. My sympathies lie with middle-class, working-class and and working poor women and men.

In 1997 I worked as the Assistant Manager of a wealthy Methodist Church Thrift Store in Minneapolis Minnesota. I had worked there for a couple of years and volunteered there before that full-time. I lived across the street. It was a period of rebuilding my life when I moved in after crashing and burning greatly a few months before.

The Coffee Gallery was across the street and I looked for an apartment that I could rent with a housing grant I had and voila' I looked at the building across the street, a pre-World War II brownstone with a tiny kitchen (which I loved) really a little closet, a non-working fireplace, built in book case, and an awesome sun porch which I made into my plant and meditation space. I found a used pair of collapsible opera glasses and did a visual survey of who was hanging out in the Coffee Gallery across the street so I could decide whether to grace everyone with my presence. Sometimes a couple baristas let me wash dishes in exchange for coffee and a sandwhich. I was in my element and this felt like home for me. "Home is that place where when you need to go there they take you in."

I want to be sympathetic to actresses on the way up. I really do but having worked among struggling actors and having studied acting myself through Outreach classes at The Guthrie Theater also in Minneapolis Minnesota there is a kind of actor that will go to any lengths to be cast and to become famous.