#METOO

Tarana Burke is depicted in the image above. Tarana Burke is a social activist, strong relentless black woman, wife and community organizer, she began using the phrase “Me Too” in 2006, on the Myspace social network as part of a grassroots campaign to promote “empowerment through empathy” among women of color who have experienced sexual abuse, particularly within underprivileged communities. She targeted a lot of underprivileged communities because often those are the groups of people we ignore and the media seems to neglect because they don’t have the finances or stability to be heard. Tarana Burke, who is creating a documentary titled Me Too, has said she was inspired to use the phrase after being unable to respond to a 13-year-old girl who confided to her that she had been sexually assaulted. Burke later wished she had simply told the girl, “me too”. At the time it was extremely hard for her because to be reminded of the situation caused her fear but eventually she realized it was time to speak up.

On October 15, 2017, actress Alyssa Milano encouraged spreading the hashtag #MeToo, as part of an awareness campaign in order to reveal the ubiquity of sexual abuse and harassment. Milano tweeted: “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.” Milano later acknowledged earlier use of the phrase by Burke, writing on Twitter, “I was just made aware of an earlier #MeToo movement, and the origin story is equal parts heartbreaking and inspiring”. Milano announced in an interview with Rolling Stone that she and 300 other women in the film industry are now supporting another movement called Time’s Up, an initiative that aims to help fight sexual violence and harassment in the workplace through lobbying and providing funding for victims to get legal help if they cannot afford it. Her goal is to raise awareness to women around the world on the number of women who have been sexually harassed. Her courageousness as a notable public figure shocked the world and was a stepping stone to inspire young woman who have either experienced or support it to get involved in the movement.

The original purpose of “Me Too” as used by Tarana Burke in 2006, was to empower women through empathy, especially young and vulnerable women. In October 2017, Alyssa Milano encouraged using the phrase as a hashtag to help reveal the extent of problems with sexual harassment and assault by showing how many people have experienced these events themselves.

After millions of people started using the phrase, and it spread to dozens of other languages, the purpose changed and expanded, as a result, it has come to mean different things to different people. Some people see it as a way of unifying woman in not only the oppression against sexual assault. In modern day society woman face so much oppression everyday and are not at all treated as an equal so the me too movement allowed them to see that they were not alone and never will be, theres other people out there who are going through the same experiences as them and now they finally had their voice. Tarana Burke accepts the title of the leader and creator of the movement but has stated she considers herself a worker of something much bigger. Burke has stated that this movement has grown to include both men and women of all colors and ages, as it continues to support marginalized people in marginalized communities. There have also been movements by men aimed at changing the culture through personal reflection and future action, including #IDidThat, #IHave, and #IWill.

Burke stated in an interview that the conversation has expanded, and now in addition to empathy there is also a focus on determining the best ways to hold perpetrators responsible and to stop the cycle. This idea that other woman could feel empathy made this even more remarkable. But justice was not always found, as we know sexual assault still exists, there was recently a documentary made about the musician R. Kelly that listed a lot of black woman who have been sexual assaulted by him and have yet to receive justice. Its sad that it took for an entire documentary to be created in order for the judicial system to really look into these allegations. It is even more sad that some of the children who he is doing this to do not even know that what he’s doing is wrong.

I believe that the MeToo movement is necessary in unifying woman who have similar struggles. Often times, it is easy to feel alone when you have been through a detrimental situation but the MeToo movement unites woman to have someone to talk to to rot them know they are not alone.