#MeToo
A year ago Monday, Alyssa Milano called out to the Twitterverse for women (and men) to respond "Me too," if they've ever experienced sexual harassment or assault. At the time of this update, there were 66,000 responses. And that's not including those who tweeted those words on their own, had them as their Facebook status or posted on Instagram.
I participated to show my support and to stand up and speak out with my peers. However, then I started thinking, why does our support even has to be so visual? Do people still really not know what a large and prevalent issue this is? How are people surprised when numerous friends post #metoo? Sexual assault is not some rare, every now and then, shake it off type of incident. It's a scarring, traumatizing, common, disgusting thing. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women and one in 71 men will be raped at some point in their lives and one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before they turn 18 years old. That is HORRIFIC. The latter is before college, which is a sexual assault hot spot. And this isn't even getting into sexual harassment, which is even more frequent. Stop Street Harassment found that 65% of all women had experience street harassment and a survey by Cosmopolitan found one out of three women had experienced sexual harassment at work.
And yet, we still have to keep talking about this and victims have to keep proving themselves. Their past should never matter, nor their clothes or alcohol level or their actions leading up to the moment. I think Lindy West says it best here (including her recent edit to include all marginalized people, not just women):
(For the remainder of this article, I will focus on women's experience, because that's what I know, but no one should have to go through this.)
We shouldn't have to prove that we get nervous walking down a New York street in broad daylight. You think we don't know it seems like a safe place? Yet, I've been aggressively catcalled, followed and harassed for not responding on these streets. In broad daylight. And that's just openly in public, a fraction of the actual harassment I've personally experienced.
Growing up as a female means growing up with a sense of fear and a need for self-defense. It means you'll likely think to yourself, "Is it worth it to say something?" on more than one occasion. I means having your self-esteem battered over the years and your self-worth chipped away. Below are some specific examples of what it means to me, daily:
Coworkers have grabbed me inappropriately. When other coworkers and clients were in the immediate area, no less.
I always place my keys between my fingers in case I need to defend myself against someone when walking home.
I stress out at concerts because I forget I have pepper spray on my keychain and it gets confiscated so I no longer feel protected when I leave.
My friend and I once left the beach because a man was taking pictures of us sunbathing.
I've been uncomfortable on 80% of subway rides I've ever taken because some guy staring won't stop staring at me.
A former manager compiled a list of people he thought I'd slept with, printed it out and posted it in the main employee area. Yeah. That happened.
Two men came up to my friend and I when we were in high school and said they'd pay for our groceries (girls' night in necessities like ice cream and candy...) if we went with them.
Some naive people will say to the smaller offenses, like some guy calling out to you on the street, hey, they're compliments, just take them and forget about it. Well can I just say, having a man yell "hey, gorgeous" across the street is not a compliment. I don't know you and I don't know what you'll do when I ignore you. I'm just trying to get lunch on my break and it's not fun to stress about the fragile ego of some rando yelling at you from 100 feet away. I'm just trying to get through my day so I can go home, binge The Handmaid's Tale (late to the game, I know) and eat Nutella. I am not here for your pleasure and I am not a toy or an actress on your screen.
I am also not "asking for it" simply because you can see the outline of my body through my dress. If I wear a tighter outfit to work, it's because it makes me feel good. It is NOT. For. You. It is for ME. Let me be clear. No one is EVER asking for it. I could walk outside naked right now and that, in no way, means I want to be assaulted.
If you didn't know this already, keep your hands and opinions to yourself unless someone consents and asks for them. This goes for all genders. Yes, women are the gender that is predominantly experiencing these things, but men do too. Society, as a whole, needs to do better. Start believing victims from the beginning, encourage reporting, teach our children respect and let's end this once and for all.
