TW: Rape, sexual assault.
We have heard of many national historical movements, but one national movement which has been around since 2017 is the #MeToo movement. The #MeToo movement was actually founded a decade ago by Tarana Burke, an activist in the USA.
I feel that largely, the idea and concept of #MeToo has been misunderstood all over the world. People think that the #MeToo can only be used by women, that it is a term to define that a woman has/had countered molestation or rape. Unfortunately, this is not the only meaning of the #MeToo movement. It holds a lot more, which Ms. Tarana Burke had actually introduced and tried to reach out to the world. Many of us have made the effort to hear her plea and many just assumed the case.
According to the founder Tarana Burke, the actual meaning of the #MeToo movement is that it was a term introduced to empathize with the victim of molestation irrespective of gender. It is not a term that only a woman can use, in fact, all men and people who identify with all genders are equally eligible to use this term. We have the self-made notion that only women use this term to protest against the strong, powerful men to put them down. This hypothetical assumption is absolutely wrong, no men or women use this term to bring down the reputation of the other.
“#MeToo Means Accessing The Healing Process”
I feel that the term has been used and misused, understood and misunderstood by most people across the whole world. Most importantly the social media these days are flooding with such terms and such molestation cases but barely any of us have any concrete idea about when the term must be used.
Birth of #MeToo Movement
The birth of this movement was to raise the voice for the black women who have gone through the trauma of sexual violence. Many people or rather many men have questioned, “Why to bring up such memories several years after facing the incident?” I would like to point out those that if you understand the meaning of the term then you would understand that #MeToo is a term for empathy and not sympathy.
The fact is that some girls or women have also faced physical assault even before they knew that they were being assaulted. But now they can raise their voices against what they had faced in the past because now they know that whatever they have gone through was wrong then and they did not have the courage to speak then.
Women Are Strong But They Lack a Voice
It is really sad that a large part of the female in various interior parts of the world still fails to raise their voices against such brutal actions. In villages of Rajasthan, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and various other states women are not even aware that they can file complaints against such giants.
Very recently we have come across cases where male family members or relatives have also molested girls and women of the family. Such women think that bringing up such issues publicly will hurt their self-respect and image but sadly they do not realize that not encountering is also compromising with their own self.
The problem of speaking up about molestation does not only prevails with the village, unprivileged women. Many women face molestation in some form or the other in their daily life and workplaces. In fact, domestic violence is also a part of the molestation but we fail to bring those events up. Women in the fear of losing jobs compromise their self-respect in workplaces and keep up with the molestation they counter.
The misunderstood term, #MeToo movement is to stand by the men and women who have faced sexual violence in the past have not been able to confront it to others for many many years. The expansion of the term #MeToo has made it possible to make a national conversation around the world for people, irrespective of their gender, and their gender choices.
This movement has been misused by many thinking that it is a weapon to target powerful men, but it is certainly not about that. In fact, this movement is just to allow a person to heal after such trauma. This is the least we can do as a civilized set of creatures that we can stand by the ones that need to heal themselves after facing such violence.
Results Of The #MeToo Movement
This movement is also about, “radical community healing” – all the people of the same community must come together to protest against the wrong and also to heal themselves. As a result of this movement, outcomes have arrived as expected, 1. Empowerment of Empathy and 2. Radical Community Healing.https://twitter.com/taranaburke/status/919704949751255040?lang=en
Empowerment Of Empathy
When two people exchange the term #MeToo it denotes that one says to the other, “I hear you, I see you and I believe you” and then starts the healing process. #Metoo is not just a movement, it is an emotion that a lot of people can connect with very easily.
Radical Community Healing Process
As we already mentioned that it was a movement that was introduced by the black women who have repeatedly been attacked in the sexual agenda. All the black women in the community decided to stand strong against this process so that together they could raise their voices. But now it is no longer limited to just the black women, it is relevant for every man and woman of all communities who go through the same.
Unfortunately, the percentage of women facing this issue is much higher than men’s. The ultimate aim of this movement is to teach people how to eradicate sexual violence. This national movement #MeToo will help us to get together under the same umbrella to say “NO.” “It is high time now, we should STOP telling women how to stop being raped, and START telling men how to respect women.”