All it took was two words to start a massive movement across social media.
“Me too.”
Actor Alyssa Milano called the women of Twitter on Sunday to reply to her tweet saying “me too.” The number of responses is chilling.
The tweet comes days following the news breaking surrounding Harvey Weinstein’s scandal in Hollywood. A scandal that got him kicked out of the academy, something that hasn’t happened in over a decade.
Since the tweet, thousands of people, mostly women, have shared their own stories across media sites, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. It didn’t take long for the hashtag to reach national trend levels, even gaining responses from several men. One user wrote, “me too. I don’t know if means anything coming from a gay man but it’s happened. Multiple times.” (It counts.)
Milano wrote her own piece where she further discussed the Harvey Weinstein scandal saying that giving a statement was hard for her to do on a personal level. You can read it here.
But here’s the question so many are asking: why now? Why do we need to talk about this right now?
It’s been a long time coming, and it should’ve happened years ago. Decades ago, really. Women are no longer silent. Women have a voice now, and more and more, we, as a whole, are shouting from the rooftops until someone finally hears us. And it looks like this time, someone heard. Twitter definitely heard when they suspended Rose McGowan for speaking out against Weinstein, but Twitter can’t suspend us all. Not in this capacity, and not without major fallback. Twitter’s actions also sparked the #WomenBoycottTwitter movement in response to McGowan’s suspension.
We have to talk about this now because we can talk about this now. It’s that simple. We have to speak up or nothing will change. And things have to change.
If you have a story and are ready to share, please take to social media, use the hashtag “me too,” and speak up. You don’t have to get specific. You can just tweet with #MeToo and that is enough.
To all the women – to all the people – who have been silenced, I stand with you. I speak up with you and I speak up for you.
And-
Me too.