Recently, a stunning awareness to women’s sexual assault has taken over social media. At the Golden Globes this past Sunday, many people wore black to stand in solidarity against this problem, and have joined the #MeToo movement. This movement started on social media, when a young woman shared her sexual assault story, ending it with the hashtag “MeToo” and prompting other women to do the same, in order to provide a recognition of how dire the problem was. The phrase was spread “as part of an awareness campaign in order to reveal the ubiquity of the problem, tweeting: “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.” said Alyssa Milano, a prominent actress in the movement.
This spurred many people to post #MeToo on their social medias, showing how prominent and important this issue was. The hashtag was used more than 500,000 times the first day it was found, and had been used by more than 4.7 million people within the first 24 hours. This issue has only grown. Due to it’s severity, the group Time’s Up was formed, which is “is a unified call for change from women in entertainment for women everywhere. From movie sets to farm fields to boardrooms alike, we envision nationwide leadership that reflects the world in which we live.” Many prominent female figures in society have participated in the founding of this new group, such as Ashley Judd, Eva Longoria, America Ferrera, Natalie Portman, Rashida Jones, Emma Stone, Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon, among many others.
This issue has been around much longer than these women, yet only now is it being adressed. Our society has been disregarding women, and ignoring cries for help. This movement has unveiled a great problem in our society, and is one that needs to be changed. Women are not to be overlooked, or abused. This movement is one that will never die, or fade, and all we can do is fight for women’s rights, and equality.
