Recently, Alyssa Milano took to twitter asking women to share their stories of sexual harassment and assault. “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.” She included an image of text that said, “Me too. Suggested by a friend: ‘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.'” This is in light of the recent exposé by Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker revealing the sexual misconduct of Harvey Weinstein.
Phoebe shared her own experiences and thoughts on twitter.
Left phoneless and walletless in the dark on the side of a road, picked up by 2 guys, had to fend off the same thing again by them. No one is immune to assault or harassment. No one. Slut shaming and victim shaming is the same thing. I was a teenager and that type of story was accepted by the girls as normal, and used as a way to ruin my reputation and spread as gossip by the boys. That there is the problem. Also, I think about this at least zero times day. Very rarely over the last 10 years. But what I do think about daily is the day to day objectification of women’s bodies, of the accusations towards women in regards to their mental health. Who has ever been accused of being too fat, of being pregnant, of trying to steal someone’s boyfriend, of being anorexic, of being a drug addict. All accusations to rob women of their identities and their self worth. Being ashamed of being ourselves and of who we are and what we do, what we’ve done. I hope the next generation of girls sees that assault, and harassment, sexual or otherwise, is not normal. Should never be normal. And don’t feel weird/guilty/awkward or ashamed to speak out. Or not even need to speak out but to not feel like they’ve done anything wrong. Oh you know, “just a bit of locker room talk” they said.
Me too, Phoebe. Me too.
