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On 16 October 2017, after Alyssa Milano’s tweet, thousands of women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted, came out in the open and wrote ‘me too’ on their social media platforms.
Since then, #MeToo has been one of the top trends on Twitter, with an increasing number of people sharing their harrowing experiences every minute.
Though it would be safe to say that this online campaign has accomplished what it set out to achieve - to give people a sense of the sexual harassment problem that women face - there are many women out there who don’t know how to deal with the hashtag.
This woman, who asked her query to The Slate’s Mallory Ortberg , said she doesn’t know how to deal with #MeToo as a rape survivor.
I’m feeling triggered and angry. Social media is a big part of my job, so I can’t just turn it off all day, but I’m not sure what to do. I keep finding myself going to the bathroom and sobbing. My boss posted on our Facebook page about how “proud” he was of all the women who’ve been sharing their stories and I almost lost it. I haven’t talked to many people about what happened to me, including several members of my family.
The woman further said that though she doesn’t want to come out as a survivor through a hashtag, she really wants to respond instead.
I want to tell people that survivors don’t owe them their stories. I don’t want people to come away from this display of mutual pain and think that by posting a hashtag, they’ve done enough. I’m feeling really grossed out by all of the men who seem to have never realized that this was a thing until now. I understand why people would want to post, but it just makes me furious.
She says that the hashtag makes her feel like everything she’s gone through has been reduced down to a hashtag so that it can trend on social media.
She further asked Ortberg if he is obliged to speak on social media, to which she replied “absolutely not”.
You do not ever have to share your story unless you feel safe and comfortable doing so, and you want to share your story.
Not sharing your #MeToo story does not make you “less brave” or uninspiring, she further said.
Just like this woman who just can’t talk about the assault she faced, there are people, who despite writing #MeToo are unable to talk about what happened.
Although many women are sharing their stories, and are standing in solidarity with other women, there are still innumerable people who are uncomfortable talking about it. The one thing that this sheds light is on is the fact that the magnitude of the harassment problem is way larger than what meets the eye.
The massive #MeToo campaign represents only the tip of the iceberg.
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