#MeToo; a movement against Sexual Assault/ Harassment.
Started by Tarana Burke in 2006, #MeToo was for anybody to come out and speak up about their experiences with sexual assault or harassment. Tarana initially started this movement to empower women to raise their voices against sexual violence along with raising awareness for the same concern. But it wasn’t restricted just to women, #MeToo was for everyone, it didn’t matter what your gender was, all one had to do was voice out their experiences of sexual assault, if any.
But here’s what happened, since a majority of victims who spoke out were women, #MeToo was naturally assumed to be a feminist movement. Another reason for it to be taken so were the wrong accusations made by some “FEMINAZIS” who for very wrong and personal reasons took the opportunity open for real victims and used it for their own personal greed.
It’s a pity, a pity for those who happened to become victims of being made an assaulter for a false sexual assault case. Although it’s a real pity for those women who in life have fallen to such levels that they’d become opportunists for something that could’ve truly turned out to be one of the greatest & righteous movements in global history.
Their one false accusation ruined the careers & lives of all those innocent men out there and turned everyone against believing the voices of the real victims of sexual assault.
#MeToo could’ve been revolutionary because it was for everyone. Women, Men, anyone from the LGBTQ+ Community. Yet again, as great as our society could be, any man who came out with their story was discouraged by being labelled as “non-masculine”, I mean, is that even a word? Does that even make any sense?
So, here’s another thing to pity; Pity those who think that speaking up for yourself, or about something that you have experienced, which not many from your crowd might’ve, makes you someone not from that space. Pity those who think that every gender has a particular personality trait and a set of experiences & opportunities restricted to only them. Pity anybody who thinks Feminism is against something, and not just a word for a movement advocating for the very basic fundamental rights of women that they’ve been deprived of because of the long prevailing patriarchy!
The world needs to understand the difference between feminism and the #MeToo movement. Feminism is about advocating equal opportunities between all genders, whereas the #MeToo movement was an opportunity for ALL to open up about their experiences with sexual harassment in order to make the society aware of the degree it exists in & to possibly bring justice to those having had experience something as evil as harassment.
“Black Lives Matter is not a black people's movement - MeToo is not a women's movement - Pride is not a gay people's movement - it's all humanity's movement - a movement for being accepted as humans by the humans.” - Abhijit Naskar