Last night I went to Riverside Theatre's production of The Taming of the Shrew. Every year, they perform two Shakespeare plays (this year they did Moliere instead of a second Shakespeare) in the Festival stage in City Park, which is modeled after the Globe Theatre.

I have to admit, I've only read the first half of the play. I started reading it, and got distracted by something else and the book went back on the shelf and I never finished it. Shakespeare always loses something in the reading. Unfortunately, this play just completely made me cringe. I *know* things were different for women not so many years ago. But it's so easy to take it for granted. If a man ever treated me like that, he would be out on his ass.

The big drama, though, was in the parking lot after the play. I missed the incident that started the whole thing, but the gist of the tirade from the woman was this: "There are ten of you guys and three of us chicks. What do you expect we're gonna think? You think you can pull that shit and get away with it?" I think one of the guys did something she interpreted as sexual harassment, something that really threatened her, because she was shaking afterward. As I drove by, I gave her a word of encouragement, because it took real guts to call someone out on something like that.

Neither treatment can be defined as respect. A man controlling a woman...that's not respect. A man objectifying a woman...that isn't either. It shouldn't have to be one or the other. I can take care of myself like a man, but there's no way in hell I want to be treated like one. I want to be treated like my own person, with my own opinions and my own desires and my own dreams. Everyone should be respected like that.

There a lot of men and women who know how to do that. But it only takes a few fuckwits and a few victims to make the rest of us uncomfortable and questioning and ending up shaking in the parking lot after standing up for ourselves.