This morning my Facebook and Twitter were sprinkled with the simple hashtag #metoo. I was curious what this was all about and quickly realized it was a way to draw awareness to victims of sexual harassment and assault. This topic has been a hot topic in the news lately because of the allegations against Harvey Weinstein, a Hollywood executive who was accused of various sexual assaults against many famous actresses. I don’t want to make this all about him because what he did was unacceptable and his banishment from Hollywood and the destruction of his career is unfolding as we speak.

The issue I have with this is that because he was famous, he is paying the price in a very public way. This is good because if someone wants to behave this way toward another person, the world should know about it and it should have a drastic effect on their life. The victim’s life has been forever changed and they have to live with the shame and guilt that they were taken advantage of or mistreated because they were a certain gender.

However, this is the first famous person who is being taken down in the spotlight that I can remember. What about all the athletes who beat up on their wives, girlfriends or even strangers for whatever reason and are still playing the next day like it was just another day. The headline breaks, people react in an expected way, the athlete appeals. it's an unnecessary 3+ month news story that eventually ends with the player apologizing and being cut from their team and subsequently being picked up by another team, who doesn’t mind having a criminal on their team. Hey, they already have those arrested for DUI, drug possession in the league, why not add sexual assault to the mix.

The worst part of this is that every #metoo I saw was from someone I knew. People who are posting cat videos, memes, and telling me when they will get married based on their favorite pop tart on a Buzzfeed quiz, have also had these terrible things happen to them.

Obviously, they survived physically, but mentally, I can’t imagine the struggle it took to type those five letters and press post. If it were me, I would have backspaced and retyped about 50 times before I just gave up and thought “nobody can do anything about it now, so what’s the point”.

The point is that it matters.

It matters on this October day, it will matter next week, a few months from today, next spring, on the 4th of July, and twenty years from now, it will still matter.

These fads to raise awareness are great, but like everything else on social media, it will eventually just be another post on our feed that will be buried by more cat videos, endless political posts and maybe a few Buzzfeed quizzes. Yes, it’s a hot topic now, but for the victims, it pops up on their newsfeed of life more than they would like and will never completely go away.

This happens to women and men and there is no reason for it. We learned in kindergarten to use our kind words and keep our hands to ourselves, so why does this have to keep happening to innocent people for simply being people. There is usually a circumstance, but never an excuse.

So to those who had the courage to type #metoo and post it for the world to see, I support YOU. This is not a topic I ever thought I would write about, but I have realized that I want to do it for those who are affected by this. You are the people who should be getting the spotlight in these stories, not the person who did this to you.