The Harvey Weinstein sexual assault allegation is probably the biggest story in every headline and magazine you can think of. Last week, actress Rose McGowan came forward accusing Weinstein of raping her when she was just 16-17 years old. Since her coming forward, more celebrities such as Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow have come forward also sharing that Weinstein assaulted them as well.
With all this happening Rose McGowan accused Adam Sandler of being sexist, because he had known about Weinstein raping McGowan, but when he was asked about it, he denied any knowledge, which led to Rose McGowan calling him out on Twitter and getting temporarily suspended for talking about the assault and calling out Sandler. It also got her fired from her talent agent due to the controversial issue.
After getting suspended from Twitter, many celebrity men and women were furious with Twitter for how they reacted to this issue and they found that suspending Rose McGowan's Twitter was extremely unfair because it was in a way violating her freedom of speech amendment and they silenced a victim which truly is so wrong. So on October 13th, there was a movement called #WomenBoycottTwitter. Where celebrities, such as Chrissy Teigen decided to stay off Twitter to show that silencing women was not okay. This movement worked, Twitter gave Rose McGowan back her page, and the CEO apologized for any upset it may have caused.
But it didn't stop there. On October 15th, McGowan's former Charmed costar Alyssa Milano tweeted out this:
This is now known as the "Me Too" movement, encouraging victims both male and female to simply write "me too" if they had been sexually harassed, assaulted, or abused, to bring issue to a pressing situation in society, to say they too, have been assaulted.
While some may not be ready to share and that is more than okay, others have simply wrote "me too" on various social media outlets (including myself), such as Facebook and Twitter. And some, have even gone as far as to tell their story on it. Which to me is amazing, I personally believe that sharing your story, can inspire others to come forward and speak up about what they've gone through.
It takes a great deal of strength to be able to share what you went through. Often times victims won't come forward, due to shame, or threats made by the assaulter. Which is something that I find heartbreaking. Even though at one point in time, I hid due to shame and threats made by the one who assaulted me.
I just recently told my mother about what happened to me a few years ago. It took therapy, and faith to be able to talk about it. I now advocate strongly about this movement, and any movement that is designed to help victims of sexual and domestic violence. Programs such as RAINN, NO MORE, and Law and Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation, have helped millions of men and women around the world tell their story and help them through the trauma.
It hurts a lot to see people bashing this movement because they think that it's all attention seeking. It isn't at all. It's about bringing an issue that millions of men and women have fallen victim too everyday.
Now it is my own opinion, but I do believe it's a good movement. You don't have to share your story, and it doesn't matter how "severe" it is. An assault is an assault. And in this generation, we have a major problem with it.
People get away with rape more than people get away with murder. Take Brock Turner for an example. He brutally raped a fellow Stanford University student, and he was sentenced to 6 months in jail, and he didn't even serve 6 months, he served 3 months. Which shows how truly f*cked up our legal system is. Brock Turner came from a wealthy family and was a star athlete. Brutally raped a woman and not only did the judge turn his head from the severity of the situation, but Turner's father Dan A. Turner stated in a letter that he "didn't deserve jail time" and that "his life will never be the same." apparently it was "a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action, out of his 20 plus years of life"
Still to this day I wonder how the hell that sexist pig is married. Men like Dan and Brock Turner and even our President who made a comment back in 2005 about if you grab women by the p***y, that you can get them to anything, are why we need stricter laws on sexual assault.
"Me Too" isn't a negative movement, in fact it's a movement to get people to wake up and see that we need to change. We are the generation of change. And this is an issue we need to stand up and say we will change.