A few weeks ago I was lying in bed, scrolling through Twitter before I went to sleep. As I scrolled I started seeing the words "Me Too" a lot. I clicked on one and started reading to figure out why I was seeing it. The reason why I was seeing it was that Alyssa Milano had tweeted "If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet."
After seeing that, I kept scrolling through my feed, and I saw these two little words everywhere. I saw people I looked up to tweeting it, I saw my friends tweeting it, I saw my mom tweet it. And I thought to myself how can almost every woman I know have this moment. I almost started to cry as I kept reading. Then I stopped to think, and realized I had that moment too. I had had that moment over and over again, from the age of 12, and it had only gotten worse as I had gotten older. Now I am 18 and have faced sexual harassment so many times that I had become almost numb to it.
- When I was 12 someone cat called me, he was easily 10 years my senior, and he made a comment about my butt, and I thought it was something I did. I was 12 years old and it was 100+ degrees and I was wearing shorts.
- When I was 13 a guy told me my face wasn't much, but at least I had "nice tits" and told me to show them to him.
- When I was 14 a guy said I was a slut, because the dress I was wearing was somewhat form fitting. He told me to show him what my mouth could do.
- At 15 cat calling was more and more common.
- At 16 someone started rumors that I was sleeping with a male friend. They spiraled out of control, affecting my job and threatening my employment, as well as emotionally breaking me for that summer. I would hear all of the whispers, and the things they would say. Other guys would come up to me, and ask for or demand sexual favors because they thought I would give them. I lost a sense of safety that year that I never got back.
- At 16 a boy wouldn't take no for an answer, he would get to close, and not back away, his hand would be on my leg, and he wouldn't take it off. He had hundreds of pictures of me, and I hadn't even known most of them were taken. I tried to get help for it. And no one believed me because " he's such a good boy, you two used to be such good friends" I was told my only option was to drop it, or to go to the police. Since not even my own family and friends would believe me, I had to drop it.
- Once I started college I thought I would have a fresh start and could get away from all of this. But the cat calling has been more prevalent then ever, I've had random strangers try and get me into their car, or stand to close to me on the metro when they didn't have to, pressing their body against me even when I moved away. I've been cornered at a party by someone who was drunk, and easily a foot taller than me, and not able to get away as I smell the alcohol on their breath, wondering what they would do to me.
-In just the past couple of weeks I've had someone say they slept with me when they didn't. All because I turned him down. Now he has ruined my reputation, caused a large group of people to stop talking to me, and for the sexual harassment to get even worse.
None of this is even the worst thing that has ever happened to me. So as I read through those "Me Too" posts late at night I started to cry. Every girl I know can say "Me Too" and most of the guys I know don't understand, and probably never will.
To every girl that says "Me Too" I stand with you, and I believe you.
Me Too.
