Jodie Vanderslot | Health Editor
Featured image | Rowan Campbell
Sexual violence is an encroachment on a person’s life, their rights, and their decisions. It is any unwanted advance, phrase, touch, or other sexual act to which an individual has not provided their sober consent. It is a intrusion on a person’s boundaries, trust, and feelings.
This problem has come to the forefront recently due in part to the #MeToo movement.
The phrase originated from Tarana Burke’s decade of social activism, but became popularized and more recently known through actor Alyssa Milano. Burke initially started “Me Too” as a grassroots movement meant to empower through empathy for survivors of sexual abuse, assault, exploitation, and violence in underprivileged communities that don’t have prompt access to crisis centres. Burke spent over 10 years building the movement, with a special focus on the health and wellness of young women of colour.
However, Milano was the first to tweet the tag on October 15, resulting in a viral spread across Twitter. It read: “If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.”
Within hours, the hashtag was trending in over 85 countries, from Pakistan to France.
“The #MeToo campaign is a fascinating movement to me for several reasons. It’s amazing to see so many people working together toward something and finding a kind of kinship and belonging,” says Dani De Angelis, a fourth-year Visual Art & Art History student.
“The #MeToo social media campaign is a great opportunity to have an important public discussion about sexual harassment and sexual violence, and offers survivors who wish to come forward with their experiences publicly, the opportunity to do so,” says Debbie Hansen, executive director of Community Support and Services.
The two-word hashtag created a digital response from women, as well as some men and transgender individuals, as a way to denounce sexual assault and harassment. In light of the allegations of sexual harassment and violence made against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, the hashtag #MeToo provided a platform for individuals to publicly identify that they, too, have experienced sexual assault.
Alexis Benveniste, a writer for The New York Post, responded to the media surge just a day later, tweeting: “Reminder that if a woman didn’t post #MeToo, it doesn’t mean she wasn’t sexually assaulted or harassed. Survivors don’t owe you their story.”
“The #MeToo campaign really helped me as a young woman to realize that my experiences are not something to be ashamed of. Reading so many tweets and statuses about what we have to go through on a daily basis simply because we’re born women really makes me feel close to all the women around me, and inspires me to speak out against these injustices,” says Sarah Zaman, a first-year Biology student.
Following October 15, personal statements continued to pop up on newsfeeds—not gradually, but almost consistently. The names of those who are sexual assault survivors, whose consent had been violated, and rights were blatantly ignored, began rising to the surface—some that provoked shock amongst readers.
But a shock value must be involved in this movement as a way to evoke change, as we need to comprehend the magnitude of the issue at hand and the gravitational pull each occurrence has on everyone.
It should stop us in our tracks and make us enraged by the injustices, violations, and crimes that have been committed against our family, friends, and peers.
“What’s off-putting is the fact that the people involved are all victims of a crime that has been something they’ve either had to manage in relative silence, something they’ve been silenced about, or in some cases something they’ve had to relive during police investigations. The range of acts related to sexual assault is extensive, and to top it off, it’s not limited to only the perpetrator and the victim—the after-effects permeate their lives and relationships,” adds De Angelis.
Women and men are using the hashtag as a call-to-arms. It’s more than a catchphrase and a hashtag—they are experiences that are embedded into the individual’s lives, past and future. It is intended to amplify the voices of survivors, allowing them a space to share their stories and be heard.
“That’s what makes the #MeToo movement such a great event—it’s a place to share, empathize, and broadcast concerns,” says De Angelis. “We’re still in the beginning stages of addressing and punishing incidents—painfully slowly in my opinion—but we are making progress toward giving sexual assault more attention and taking it more seriously.
“Personally, I have seen so many friends of different genders come forward with the help of the hashtag, and the fact that it’s supported at this time is, I think, what’s helping them come forward. This is a time for us to move ahead and make the right decisions when it comes to addressing sexual assault crimes.”
With files from Angelica Babiera, Matt Dionne, and Émilie Miranda
