#MeToo Global Movement Against Sexual Assault

All over the internet, social media, the hashtag #metoo has been trending. This is not just another trend, or something that should be blatantly thrown around. This movement was started by women, and men, all over the world who have been affected by sexual assault. One by one, victim’s started speaking up, and just like that, expressed with a hashtag and two words, a global movement was born.

In mid-October, shortly after sexual harassment allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein were first reported, actress Alyssa Milano posted an open letter on Twitter that encouraged victims of sexual abuse to share the magnitude of the problem, using the reply “Me Too.”

Milano’s call-out — the extension of an activist’s campaign launched a decade prior — was aimed to give the world a “sense of the magnitude of the problem.” And it certainly did. All over the world, this hashtag has been blowing up, and it finally got people aware of the issue of sexual assault.

For a long time, most women defined their own sexual harassment and assault in this way: as something unspoken, something private, something to be ashamed of acknowledging. Silence, although understandable, has its cost. Sexual Assault, in no way, should be kept under a rock. It does not define anyone, or should make anyone feel less like a person. If we don’t speak up about this issue, Sexual Assault will become embedded in our culture. We cannot have people treating other people as worthless objects a “normal” thing.

The main hope for this viral campaign, is not to just be forgotten and hid in the shadows, but to influence social change. I encourage everyone of you who know someone who has been sexually assaulted or harassed to speak up about it.

To learn more, visit these sources:

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/the-movement-of-metoo/542979/

www.cnn.com/2017/10/17/us/me-too-tarana-burke-origin-trnd/index.html

www.cnn.com/2017/10/30/health/metoo-legacy/index.html