What did I learn from the power outage on the hottest day of the year, and what conclusions can we draw from the shocking rape in Eilat? • Dad's voice

• Illustration: Zeev Engelmeier

Power outage

In August - with children

Makes you want to haiku.

I wrote this haiku in the bathroom, four and a half hours into the initiated power outage that only came to light when I heard the whole house was turned off, and then I also went to Wikipedia to check that it complied with all haiku rules. At that time I was with a three percent battery in my mobile and the power return was not visible on the horizon, and I mention all this just so you get an idea of ​​my mental state in those moments, and also so that you know that I have indeed successfully met all the strict haiku rules.

It turns out that just like the corona, this power outage also came to teach me things. First, that I owe the TV shows to translate to my kids the concept of time ("Dad, can I play outside?" "No, it's still hot now, two more episodes of planes on it would be fine"), and without them they have no idea if a quarter of an hour It's today or next week. Second, that I need a TV in the background - entertainment programs, animated programs for children, bombastic promos for survival or just random songs on YouTube, this white noise helps me adjust from the inside to doing. Absolute calm, like sunsets at sea, is probably meant for the better of me. 

I thought in this segment my kids are Daddy's kids, they are a generation born to screens and all the other clichés that always catch on, but after a few minutes of bullying about the TV (for them it was a "TV break", the rest of the appliances bothered them less), they put chairs in from the outside , Arranged in front of them rows of toys and dolls, then sat down and talked with them for hours, creating for them a world that makes me jealous and happy.

After about five hours, children ejected from the neighbors' houses began to be somehow sucked into my house, and I suddenly found myself in one room in front of six children, without screens, air conditioning or any other modern distraction known to mankind. Fortunately, thanks to the long hours in the home kiln, I did not find the energy needed to locate their parents and beat them. The experience was not simple. I will not try to sell you that I discovered the light precisely in the great difficulty, but I did realize that I was a little more durable than I thought. Here, when one of the neighbors' children asked me for pizza, for a moment I even considered ordering.

A moment after I managed to disperse them to their homes ("Go and see if you have the electricity back"), our respirators went back on. I was a little happy about the air conditioner, but also a little sad, because within a moment the kids were back to the mantras of "Daddy put me on planes, Daddy not this episode", and completely forgot about the complex game that occupied them for hours.

Okay, let's see, it's not that bad. After all, another thing I discovered during this power outage is that it is better to have an air conditioner and a TV than without an air conditioner and a TV. And if you are both rich and healthy at the same time, it generally upgrades you package. Do not forget where you first heard it.

***

Like everyone else, I was shocked when the rumors about rape in Eilat began to spread. Even though it was clear to me from the first moment that the number 30 was unrealistic, a lump of suffocation caught in my throat as I thought about what had happened behind the closed door. It has nothing to do with having a girl, it's a basic human identification.

Still, I saw no need to share my shock with my followers on social media. It felt more like time for a gathering. Unfortunately, most people did not think like me, and bombarded the media with all the generic recommendations available to them. 

The initial female rage I can still somehow understand, even if recently it seems that sometimes it goes beyond abysmal hatred and a distorted perception of reality about the entire male sex. No one judges a person in his grief. But to the men's posts a little less I could connect. At least in my feed, the subtext always sounds about like "Pain for a six year old girl, I have a very strong opinion that rape is really really bad, and today's youth, and men, and education, and the country ..." Girls, along with a clip of Monica Sex written about the rape in Shimrat or Tivon, for a quarter of a century that no one is really sure about.

It is likely that these men also do it to get likes and appreciation from their immediate environment (avatar posting probably did not bring the desired results), but mainly because they think this is what the environment expects them to do - prove they are men of a different breed, human, advanced, Contain, and most importantly, that they are "not like that." And it's a bit pathetic to me, because a decent man who knows well who he is and what he is, projects it naturally on his environment, without any need for forced and flattering monologues about the deterioration of masculinity in 2020.      

Men are the Muslims of the sex world , and I say this in the sense that 99% of men are not sex offenders, but 99% of sex offenders are men. Anyway, it's a piece of bag to live with on days like these, where we find ourselves on the wrong edges of too many matters. But it is also an opportunity for growth, of course, because redemption is known to come through the sewers, and perhaps some of us did not feel it at all, but say we have been up too long.

Even for the female sex it is a good time for mental reckoning. Instead of raging on social media against the "rape culture" that exists here, as if we were some backward province in India, and instead of throwing slogans against "toxic masculinity", try to see your part in the matter as well. Not in rape, God forbid, but in the brutality of the delicate and ancient game between the sexes, in an age where sexuality is used as a weapon and pieces of skin are exposed in order to rake in likes and compliments.

The #metoo movement has unfortunately received a violent and quite destructive twist in Israel. Like everything in our hysterical country, this too has been taken one step too far. Apparently only here a necessary resistance movement can naturally turn into a well-oiled slander machine, whose purpose is not to streamline, fight or aid, but to defame and destroy, and around no one dares say a word for fear of being suspected by the internet thought police of misogyny.

There is no doubt that something in our discourse must change, and fast. The initial, necessary wave of the counter-movement has done its job, now is the time to acknowledge the wounded humanity of the other side as well. After all, the water here is quite stormy and we all sail in the same rickety boat.