Learning how movements flourish to give voice to to the serious concerns of #RapeCulture aka #Colonialism, i'm experiencing and documenting the clashes that need platforms for us to grow and understand how to best heal from the trauma caused when one is violated. I had the chance to learn about the #MeToo campaign on the Megan Kelley show. Thought it was a campaign started by Alysaa Milano and Tarana Burke. I read SANDRA E. GARCIA OCT. 20, 2017
The Woman Who Created #MeToo Long Before Hashtags article and learned that Tarana Burke had been building "Just Be Inc" a mentoring organization for young women of color. She created a campaign called "Me Too" to help young women of color who were sexually assaulted because in her endeavors to support a young woman, Ms. Burke was not able to help due to lack of resources in people of color communities. If you or someone you know are in need of resources to address #SexualAssualt please visit: Safe Horizon or call 24/7 hotline (llámenos para ayudarle) 1-800-621-HOPE (4673). If you are in immediate danger, call 911.
I than read a post from one of my advocacy partners on facebook about: Gabrielle Union on the #MeToo Movement: ‘The Floodgates Have Opened for White Women’
Monique Judge 12/06/17 7:07pm . I was like i'm so happy to be finally having this conversation of the treatment of white women and women of color. i have been exploring #EndingRapeCulture for five or more years now and started a campaign to #ChangeAttitudesTowardsWomenAndFemmesWorldwide and after reading this article changed the campaign to #ChangingAttitudesTowardsAllWomenAndFemmesWorldwide. Viewing the Kelly Megan Show there was strain and avoidance towards Ms. Burke, and i was like man the open racism. So i was really to happy to read about Gabrielle Union response to the #MeToo Movement. i understand Mrs. Union frustration and see this all the time as part of accepted rape culture. The tough skin, brush your shoulders off mentality is at that breaking point. The clash between women really need to be addressed so that we can #EndStreetHarassment mentality which leads to #SexualHarassment or #SexualAssualt
Knowing who we are dealing with helps reverse derogatory attitudes towards all women. i was #WatchingCharge and a red head women actress was asking another woman where she had been because she knew the woman was fooling around with a baseball player in the locker room. The other woman said she was lured and before she could finish her sentence the red head actress stated that "women aren't lured and have to take responsibility for their actions." We all have to take responsibility, especially when we have viewed movies like "Mahgony", "Ray Charles" and others that are centered around #RapeCulture.
i had no plans to share my encounters with #SexualHarassment. Started the campaign #ChangingAttitudesTowardsWomenAndFemmes to address the abuse that women go through. In telling their stories i was sharing my concerns for the issue. i'm sharing my story because i was publicly sexually harassed and the assailant felt a need to taunt me on facebook by creating a facebook page about me calling him out for the inappropriate behavior.
5wEdited
why did i call him out on facebook? He was promoting a #DivideAndConquer bill and talked about the behavior of the people the bill was really attacking. His attack on others behavior triggered my response like how can he throw a stone. He asked me to share what happen and my response is this blog. i was attending a back to school event with my grandsons. When i saw the assailant and my neighbor who happens to be a public official. I greeted my neighbor with a hug because i hadn't seen him in a while, then attempted to greet the assailant with a hug when he decided to brush his private parts against my leg. i immediately pushed him away from me and grew some of that thick skin to get me through the shock of his touch. He will never get close to me again.
Emmanuel Bussie She’s is tagged she sees all our remarks. Most woman rush to tell their story once the news is out there. Why are you so silent Alicia Elizabeth Dorsey
No means no!! And people need to understand how their actions affect other people. i was dealing with harassment from the store clerk. told him several times that i wasn't interested in dating him but he continued to ask me out. Finally i nipped that harassment in the bud, because i go in the store to shop not look for a date or be harassed by the clerk who has an eye for me and i don't have an eye for him. i told him again that i'm not interested in dating at the moment or building new intimate relationships. Hopefully he will get the message this time. Why do men feel a need to force themselves on a woman who shows no interest in him? Why was me saying no to him not enough? Why did he need the explanation? Be glad when i move and don't need to go to that store. These are several incidents that i have been involved in and they are one to many.
i understand Mrs. Union stand in feeling that women of color are left out on these rape issues. i recently attended #EndViolenceAgainstSexWorkers and every time i attend one of these events they are organized by white women who only want to work with white women. i don't understand the competition among the cultures but recommend "Peculiar Relationships" by Gwen Ragsdale as a start to exploring who we are as women and how we came to be. Women of color don't often get the platforms that white women get, but we are fighting back and making a difference in our communities. Rhianna Fenty started her beauty line to bring all women together, and i'm sure we can find a way to have conversations that build understanding for one another and ends #RapeCulture.
If the"Floodgates Have Opened For White Women" as mentioned in Mrs. Union article then maybe it's the place of white women to finally step up to these white men who have been creating #RapeCulture in our country since the days of slavery. We need to have these conversations because far too long white men have been driving the stake between white women and women of color. White bosses/masters sleeping with the hired help because that was part of his purpose in buying/hiring her. Not that sleeping with him is part of the job description but an unwritten requirement that the wife either not knows or ignores. We all have a role in ending this mentality, we women first have to take responsibility for how we treat one another before we can stop how others treat us.
In order to root out the problem today, we must understand that working-class women, women of color, trans women, and disabled women constantly experience harassment, assault, and rape—and they’re more likely to be fired if they speak up. I am sickened when I hear male friends call what’s happening a “witch hunt.” Don’t they realize that this movement needs to be far larger, not smaller?
Today, we are seeking solutions that benefit all women. Achieving equal pay for equal work and ensuring that women hold equal decision-making power in all industries will go far in ridding this country of the scourge of sexual abuse. I can think of one critical way to do this: 14 million people work in the restaurant industry, and the vast majority of its tipped workers are women. It is among the country’s fastest-growing industries and the single largest source of sexual harassment in the workplace. These workers aren’t paid the full minimum wage and therefore must put up with abuse because they rely on tips. Many are single mothers supporting families. They must please the customer at all costs, and often are encouraged to wear tight, revealing clothes.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Seven states eliminated the two-tiered wage decades ago; with waitresses earning the full minimum wage, sexual abuse was cut in half! This is an important lesson: When power and salaries are equal, women are less vulnerable and men are forced to behave.
As we engage this fight, we cannot overstate the deep psychological cost of sexual abuse. I work with adolescents around issues of sexuality, and I have seen how sexual abuse can have a lifelong impact on a woman—destroying her ability to trust and her sense of agency over her body, filling her with shame even though she was the victim. Seeing how rife our workplaces are with such abuse is nauseating.
Now is the time to move from #MeToo to #NeverAgain. It will take time. It will require women to have each other’s backs across the lines of race, class, ability, religion, and sexual orientation. But if sexual harassment is about power, the solution is too. And with every act of solidarity, our power grows.
Rethinking the Workplace
by Bryce Covert
Something is different. After decades of knowing what sexual harassment looks like and the toll it takes on women, the country seems ready to snap out of the collective fantasy that it’s really not a problem. Politicians have lost seats, projects have been canceled, idols have fallen from grace.
But for this moment to become more than a flicker in time, more needs to happen than for a few famous men to lose their jobs. Sexual harassment is virtually everywhere a woman turns in the economy. Forty percent say they’ve experienced unwanted sexual attention or coercion at work. It infects industries across the board: white-collar professions such as finance and technology as well as minimum-wage work in restaurants and hotels.
If you’re experiencing sexual harassment or assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). The call is free and anything you share is confidential. A trained staff member will help you find local resources like counseling and support groups, and will answer questions about medical concerns. You can also get information about local harassment laws.
