#MeToo became popular on social media as various actors, musicians, and ordinary people shared their experiences with sexual misconduct. Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and many others are out of the picture in Hollywood. The hashtag is a sign that we are starting to take sexual misconduct more seriously in our society, and that we are beginning to hold perpetrators accountable for their actions. However, some detractors say that #MeToo has gone too far because they think that women are just saying that men have harassed them because it’s trendy and that they wish to ruin careers. Stop! You are perpetuating lies about sexual misconduct victims and prioritizing the feelings of their assailants over theirs.
#MeToo is a way for victims to share their experiences and to establish that sexual misconduct can happen to anyone at anytime. It is not comparing experiences with sexual harassment to violent rape; rather it is saying that just because the sexual misconduct you may have experienced was not rape does not make what your assailant did to you right. We need to realize that sexual misconduct encompasses a wider range of actions, not just rape. I think that is crucial for people to share their stories and if a hashtag on social media gets them to do it, so be it. Sharing stories is key to squashing the idea that sexual misconduct only happens to a certain type of person and that sexual misconduct is the victim’s fault. #MeToo is a step in the right direction towards improving our response to sexual misconduct and to believing victims when they speak out.
We have not gone too far. If you argue that women are falsely claiming sexual misconduct against them, you are part of the problem. False accusations are extremely rare, one study puts them at about 5.9% of cases that means that 94.1% of stories are true. You are supporting blaming and not believing victims when they speak out, and when victims do not feel comfortable speaking out, they do not report, and when they do not report, society thinks that sexual misconduct does not exist. This argument is not even backed up by statistics, it is a lie that the misogynistic media keeps running to normalize sexual misconduct.
Who cares if they no longer have a career? That is part of their punishment for committing despicable acts. It tells them that there are consequences for their actions. Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey should not be allowed to continue their careers uninterrupted because then they will think that their behavior is okay when it’s not. We are living in a culture that is sexually coercive, especially towards women where men genuinely believe that only their desires matter and that women are just objects to fulfill their desires. We need to start pushing back against this culture,and #MeToo is a start; we need to prioritize the voices of the victims not the views of the assailants. You only think #MeToo has gone too far because you do not want to confront your problematic behavior. We should be looking at men who advocate grabbing women by the pussy with disgust not encouraging them.
