How a tough #MeToo conversation forged a closer bond between a Saskatoon father and daughter

Unless the British daily The Guardian is part of your day, you may have missed a recent story about a Saskatoon father and daughter brought closer by the #MeToo movement.

Like all family stories, this one is complicated.

I couldn't believe that this guy that was my idolI looked up to himthat we were fighting about something like that.- Portia Crowe

"I think he just didn't realize how important it was," Portia Crowe said in an interview with CBC Radio's Saskatoon Morning.

Crowe is a business journalist in London, England. So it was through social media that she discovered her father, Bob, was out of step with the #MeToo movement when he tweeted, as she recalled, something along the lines of "not all men do these things."

London calling

A series of increasingly tense texts followed, where father and daughter could not find the tone and context needed to establish common ground and come together on a complex issue.

A telephone call was scheduled to clear the air.

"I couldn't sleep before we had the talk," Portia said.

"I couldn't believe that this guy that was my idolI looked up to himthat we were fighting about something like that."

#MeToo is much more than a hypothetical discussion for Portia and her mother, who've both sharedtheir own experiences on social media.

Portia said her father is,in many ways, a feminist. But like so many men, he didn't know how to respond to public stories of sexual harassment and assault.

Portia Crowe said her father became one of "those" men.

"A lot of women, when that hashtag surfaced the #MeToo hashtag last year felt we're all voicing this, we're all sharing our stories," she said.

"But it sort of feels like we're just screaming into a void, because we're not hearing anyone say, 'Yes, I hear you.' No one is saying, 'Oh, I hear you and I'm with you,' or 'I stand with you and know you are not crazy. We believe you.'"

In advance of that scheduled phone call, Portiagot busy putting together a series of articles on issues like "mansplaining" and emotional labourthat she promptly sent off to her father.

"He was shocked. He didn't realize how upset I was," she said.

Bob Crowe listened carefully. Father and daughter came together again, and then he sent out another tweet, urging dads to reach out and talk to their daughters.

Healing the rift

It was an important gesture. Crowe was a leader in the community, a well-known film and television producer and co-owner of Angel Entertainment and Bamboo Shoots.

Just weeks after that telephone call, Bob Crowe died.

Portia said she is so grateful for having found the courage to not shield her father from the pain and hurt she experienced with his initial tweet, instead asking him to do the work, and find understanding.

"It's very easy to say, 'My dad, we are in a fight,'you know. I'm really glad we didn't let it fester."

She is equally grateful that her father listened carefully, and then acted.

As Portiasaid in an article about her conversation with her dad published in the Guardian this week, it made writing his eulogy easy.

"Dad made every effort to better understand the world from my perspective, and had no problem admitting he could be wrong," she wrote.

"He proved that everyone can learn, change, and continue to progress even, as he would say, 'old dudes' like himself."

With files from Saskatoon Morning.