#metoo
You are not alone. Together we can de-stigmatize speaking out about our experiences with sexual harassment, assault, and more.
Being a Female
I just want to say thank you, Oprah Women at the Golden Globes #MeToo Movement #MeTooMilitary "Welcome to Hell" (Love you, SNL.)
QuirkFrame IndustriesPublished 6 years ago in VivaThe Silence Breakers – Time's Person(s) of the Year
December 2017 As the year draws to a close and we amuse ourselves with the usual "best of/worst of" awards, this year’s Time Magazine’s "Person of the Year" is more than usually eye-catching. On first inspection, the person of the year is no less than five people. However, on closer examination it turns out that five is actually six. As such the cover could itself could qualify for the "Year’s Most Tragic Picture"; the visible five are amongst the most high-profile women to have come out about the sexual harassment, the one tenth is an anonymous young hospital worker from Texas. The black velvet clad elbow belonging to Ms. Anonymous is undoubtedly the most poignant part of this image and, when all the celebrity brouhaha is done about who grabbed whose tits, one senses the owner of this elbow will feel no bolder, no more comforted, nor nearer to any kind of closure.
Martin RobertsPublished 6 years ago in VivaInnocence Stolen
Growing up from what I can remember, I didn't have a horrible childhood. Both my father and my mother provided my brother and I with all that we as children would need materialistically and emotionally. I remember my mother and I not being super close, that was saved for my brother. Myself, I was a daddy's girl. Both my parents were hard workers and worked quite a lot, my dad more-so than my mother, being he had quite a few old fashioned ideals. My brother and I were close but grew apart as teen years came upon us and incidentally our hormones that made us detest each other. My parents went on to get a divorce in my early teens thus causing a divided home; I with my father and my brother with my mother. My brother would go on to thrive both socially and financially as my mother soon moved out of state once we reached adulthood. My dad ended up remarrying twice and is finally happy. Where did I end up? Jobless for most of my early 20s. In and out of therapy for a good 2 years after a failed suicide attempt around 21 years old. Did you know that severe abuse can cause lapse in memory from the time it happened until after it stopped and sometimes longer? Well if you did know that, you knew more than I did. After my suicide attempt I was put into therapy twice a week for the next 24 months. Upon being in therapy I discovered that I had been blocking out memories of being molested 8 years as a child. My suicide attempt was due to being overwhelmed with the side effects of PTSD. At the time of my attempt I did not know what PTSD was or that it was a thing. All I truly knew was I was having night terrors that were so vivid I would wake and believe I was still living the nightmare due to smells as well as seeing and hearing things; all which were never there after I woke up. I knew before seeking help I had been abused.
Megan WheelerPublished 6 years ago in VivaI Was Raped
Approximately 85,000 women and 12,000 men are raped in England and Wales alone every year; yet only 15% of those people will report it to the police and 90% of people knew their attacker.
small town girl .Published 6 years ago in VivaHow Saying Me Too Can Help Create a Safer World
I think a lot of men have a hard time imagining what it feels like to be a woman who is often prey to to the forces of misused external power, particularly in the masculine form. As women, we live in a constant state of knowing that our bodies can be possessed by another human at that human's free will. Most of us do not have the kind of defences we would need in order to remove ourselves from certain harmful situations.
Morgan Leigh CallisonPublished 6 years ago in VivaMy Victim Statement for the Trial
Victim Impact Statement Tuesday, 1 April 2014 I, K Mack, write this impact statement in relation to the charges against Robert Bonnet.
The Damaging Grey Areas of the Me Too Movement
For me, a few months back I was scrolling my news feed; that is when "Me too" came into my life. A video of a woman putting the mattress [that she was raped on] out on her lawn with the words "Me too" written in cheap permanent marker for all to see. I was moved, and I tried to swallow the feeling of a ball in my throat as I watched women write their own words in symbolism of the trauma they had endured. I, myself am a victim of sexual assault for many years in my adolescent life, and seeing the "Me too" movement make its way through social media had me feeling a concoction of feelings that included sadness, pride, and the cold dead realization that it is more common than I had assumed. As time went on, sexual abuse cases became more clear amongst the Hollywood community. Not only amongst females, but men had began to tell their stories. I started to think to myself, "This may just be a start; this movement may not solve a single problem in regards to the actual abuse but it may help people not feel so alone, lost, and isolated."
Brittany WardropPublished 6 years ago in VivaThey Wore Black
Maybe I have grown cynical, bitter and hopeless at the age of 33. This was my first thought whilst looking at my Facebook and Twitter feeds and glancing at the television set and seeing reports and posts about last night's Golden Globes awards.
Chris AbriganaPublished 6 years ago in VivaI Was Gang Raped at 13...
This is probably a story that many of us, too many of us, can tell. It's a story that's been forgotten, pushed under the rug, and only recently with the #metoo movement, even been acceptable to relate to family and friends, let alone strangers who may judge, denigrate, and victim blame me. I won't go into details in this piece, but at 13 I ran away and in the process, I was gang raped by five men and an 11-year-old little boy. Through the grace of God and my determined mother, I was saved from the child trafficking ring these men had established in Las Vegas. Basically, their operation had members who sought out "lost" middle school girls and convinced them to run away to their "house" where they were raped "to break them in" and then shuttled to California. I was the second girl from my middle school who was targeted by this operation. The first girl was taken to California and never seen or heard from again.
Tia TurnerPublished 6 years ago in VivaTo the S.A. Survivor
You're going about living your life after a trauma, wondering if you will ever get past what happened to you, wondering if you will ever feel like yourself again. If you'll ever be able to sleep without seeing the face of the person who destroyed you, if you'll ever be able to go out alone in public without being on high alert. Let me just tell you this, survivor to survivor:
Mother MayhemPublished 6 years ago in VivaWhen Your Boss Tries to Hit on You
It happened five years ago, when I started my first job right out of college; fresh, but also incredibly naïve. It was a mid-tier MNC and they have some sort of orientation program where the fresh graduates get to shadow a top management figure for some time, so as to get familiarized with the company’s multi-business arms. One day, barely two months after I joined, I was suddenly informed that I would be going on to a prompt overseas business trip with one of the top guys, whom we shall call Greg for this story.
Honest Thoughts on The "Me Too" Movement (and Why It Backfired)
When I first saw the now famous “Me Too” movement pop up on my twitter feed, it made me surprisingly happy. As a survivor of sexual violence, and one who had already come forward on social media and spoken out against their abuse, I was excited for others to feel the feeling of freedom that I felt. In November of 2016, I was sexually assaulted. By now I have come to terms with this, but I kept my assault a secret for nearly four months. I told people slowly, one-by-one, starting with the few people that I trusted, until one day I stepped forward publicly; posting a collection of poetry detailing my assault and the mental health crisis that followed. I posted this on the six month anniversary of my assault, and the amount of positivity I received brought me a newfound feeling of hope and happiness that had been absent from my life for quite a long time. Me Too was, as I hoped, the opportunity for more survivors to speak about their experiences and ultimately end the stigma while furthering their own healing.