By Delilah GrayStaff Writer
Every 98 seconds an American is sexually assaulted and therefore every 98 seconds a life is changed. Ever since the Harvey Weinstein scandal, the media has finally been bringing light to the extent of sexual assault he committed.
As of Oct. 21, over 50 strong women have come out about the abuse Weinstein put upon them. These incidents ignited the hashtag movement #metoo that has sparked women all over the world to come out about their experiences. While this is a step in the right direction, it’s not enough to invoke real change.
It’s not just Hollywood. As a society, I don’t believe we take this sexual harrassment as a priority. The truth is in the numbers and the numbers show countless women have been victims of sexual assault.
This isn’t the first Hollywood mogul to do this and he sadly won’t be the last. But Weinstein has ignited a fire in the pit of feminists. The numbers have been stacking and now it’s come out that he’s harassed or assaulted at least 50 women in the industry. The only just thing in this situation is that, unlike so many men in Hollywood, he’s paying for his consequences: his wife leaving him, getting kicked out of the industry and facing lawsuits left and right. According to Huffington Post, 99 percent of perpetrators of sexual violence will walk free. Where’s the justice in that?
With Twitter on the crusade for the good fight, actress Alyssa Milano started the #metoo movement with a tweet asking women to respond with “Me Too” if they were sexually assaulted or harassed. According to ABC News, “over 1.4 million and counting tweets included the hashtag, along with more than 13 million posts, comments and reactions on Facebook.”
Within the statistics and tweets we see, there’s finally faces behind it and hopefully, that’ll start to make the situation more real for people. If this doesn’t prove how critical the growing numbers of sexual assault are, then nothing will.
I believe in a four step process with ridding sexual assault. Step one with any problem in the world is awareness. We need to start teaching everyone what classifies as rape, the statistics and the effects of what happens to women mentally, emotionally and physically. All education teaches us is how to say no, but they never teach it in real world settings.
Step two is to further educate men and women on the importance of consent and self-defense.
Step three is ending the stigma and providing support – it is never the victim’s fault; it’s time to put that myth to bed.
Finally, step four is to discuss actual punishments for the assailants. They’re criminals, plain and simple.
According to RAINN, 17,700,000 women have been victims of rape since 1998. This movement is not about the assailants, it’s about the victims.
One out of six women will be sexually assaulted in their life. You don’t really think about it until it’s you, or someone you know. The truth is in the numbers, and the truth for me is that I am part of the one. Me too.
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