#metoo One Year Later; Where 2 Now?

It was just so meta.

Just as a piece of art by Banksy was going under the hammer, it went through the shredder.

Immediately thoughts turned to the value of the piece – what would happen to it?

Value is an interesting concept for just like art, it truly is in the eye of the beholder.  

Paying a million pounds for a painting may seem a tad excessive to you and me, but in the time that it takes you to read this sentence, Jeff Bezos earned enough to pay for it.

It’s interesting for when values is used another context - principles or standards of behavior; judgment of what is important in life- it's also up the individual to define it.

There is black and there is white and in-between these two our own personal moral code comes into play arbitrating what is acceptable and what isn't.

What is appropriate and what isn't has been redefined on a grand scale due to the seismic impact of #metoo which on October 15 brings up its anniversary.

What was seen as okay, now raises an eyebrow. What raised an eyebrow is now questioned. Questionable behavior is now clearly unacceptable. What was now unacceptable is now being made accountable.

You can gauge the impact of #metoo by how much criticism it has generated.

It’s gone too far; it hasn’t gone far enough; for changing everything, for being a sideshow and not changing anything.

Behavior that has been embedded for thousands of years isn’t simply going to change overnight because of a hashtag.

Look at smoking - you are literally told - these are going to bankrupt you if they don’t kill you first and yet people still smoke. If this is the regard they hold their own welfare in, what hope can you have for how they treat others?

Attitudes towards women have improved when you compare them to 50 years ago but when you consider the technological advances made in the last 50 years, the gains of the former pale into insignificance. 50 years ago the thought that a female be in a senior executive position let alone be CEO was as out there as sending someone up to the moon. We’ve sent men and women to the moon and how far  have attitudes shifted since?

Sadly not a quantum leap forward. You still find those who feel women are somehow incapable of doing something - this is truly Neanderthal in its thinking. The irony of those who favor males for leadership roles is that females tend to naturally possess superior levels of emotional intelligence which is critical for distinguishing between a boss and a leader.

Last week, Nobel Prizes were handed out. Donna Strickland winner for Physics was not deemed notable enough to warrant the creation of a Wikipedia page until she became just the third woman and the first in 55 years to win the Nobel Prize that has been won by the likes of Einstein, Heisenberg and Schr?dinger.

Then Nadia Murad was the first Iraqi and just the 17th woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Along with Denis Mukwege they was awarded it for their work helping women who are part of human trafficking and subject to other atrocities. Murad, a Yazidi-Iraqi who was kidnapped and held by ISIS has made it her life’s work to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict. One can’t even imagine what she and other captured women endured.

Ultimately, a person can only answer for their own actions. This is why it’s critical everyone does his part - however it may manifest - where and how he can. For if there is to be real change it can’t come from the HR Department – it has to come from within.

Don't dismiss the impact of making a difference - it doesn’t require much change to get from value to valor.