#MeToo
On Sunday, as I scrolled through my Facebook timeline my heart nearly sank to the bottom of my stomach. Instead of an array of memes and Tasty videos, my feed was flooded with a simple two-word phrase that on any given day wouldn’t hold any meaning, until now. The pit in my stomach turned to nausea as I read #metoo over and over and over again on my timeline. It wasn’t celebrities or people of power sharing their #metoo story on my feed, but instead the people who fill my everyday life.
In light of the Harvey Weinstein allegations, Alyssa Milano tweeted “If you have been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ to this tweet.” The response she got was unsettling. Thousands and thousands of people responded and eventually created the hashtag #metoo that has now been posted by over 4.7 million people on social media.
Sexual assault and harassment have been overwhelming issues for forever, but it’s not everyday that you can physically see just how many people have been affected by it. Even writing this now I still have that same nauseous feeling that overtook me on Sunday. Not because I didn’t know it was an issue, not because I had no clue that the people I am closest too have been affected by it, but because it is still happening.
While the entire hash tag sparked conversations and thoughts, it made me think about sexual harassment on my own college campus. It seems to me that as a society we have come to accept sexual harassment as a normal part of our lives. At every single college frat party I attend, I witness boys again and again assume they have a right to our bodies and us. Since when did it become “ok” to grab any girl you wanted by the hips and start grinding on her? When I see these encounters, or experience them myself, everyone else just goes on like nothing happened. But when is enough, enough?
Just this past weekend I witnessed a random boy that my friend didn’t know, slap her ass as she left a party. All the boys surrounding him laughed, and a couple of them even dapped him up like he just did something cool. She didn’t say anything and neither did I, because that type of situation happens so often it seems normal. That is where the problem stems from. Since we have conditioned ourselves that this is the norm we don’t think we have to say something about it. But that is simply not true. The fact that I hear stories constantly about “oh he just tried to grab my face and make out with me,” or “yeah it was weird he just grabbed my ass and walked away.” It should be common sense to treat women with respect, but instead, when a boy is nice to us, and goes out of his way to be respectful, he is different and “not like the rest.”
It is time to stop normalizing sexual harassment. The #metoo trend started the conversation, but it is far from over. It is time to come together as women and use our voices so #metoo never has to be tweeted by someone again. Let’s end this conversation once and for all.