In the wake of the Me Too movement, there has been a lot of discussion about the changing of the country’s mindset with respect to sexual assault and sexual harassment. But, to me, it’s a lot more basic than that. We need to start from the ground up. It has to begin with changing mindsets about what sort of behavior and speech are appropriate. Two recent experiences I had, which happened within a day of each other, illustrate my point.

On a recent Friday afternoon I was eating lunch at my desk when I received a telephone call from an adversary. I stopped eating and took the call. Sometime into the call, when the attorney appeared to be rambling on about issues that I told him I would not be changing my mind about, I tried to politely end the telephone call. When politeness didn’t work, I became more indignant telling him that I had to terminate the telephone call as I wanted to finish my lunch and I did not want to “chew my carrots  sticks in his ear.” His response to my statement was “That’s so hot!!!!” His comment momentarily shocked me. Rather than telling him all the things that was wrong with his response, I merely said, “I’ll be sure to tell that to my husband,” and hung up the phone. For the rest of the day my mind kept wandering to how I should have responded.

The next evening my husband and I went to a small local restaurant with friends. The restaurant was very crowded. As a result, when putting down our food, our waitress’ back was turned to the table next to us. She apologized to the couple sitting at that table. The man sitting there responded, “That’s okay honey, I’m enjoying the view.” We could see our waitress’ face wince at the comment as she struggled to hold her tongue. And I felt her pain. My pain quickly turned to pride when my husband and his friend looked at the waitress and said, “We are so sorry for that man’s rudeness.”

Change has to start at the roots. One person at a time and one conversation at a time.