The MeToo movement is taking the whole world to storm and on a regular basis, we come across eye-popping revelations that are shocking to the core. Every day a number of women are coming up with their MeToo stories and some of them are so horrific that they send chills down our spine. But have you ever thought who started the MeToo movement?
It is against s*xual assault and harassment and got viral in the year 2017 on social media as a hashtag. This initiative was an attempt of showing how s*xual assault and harassment are prevailing in the entire world, particularly at workplace.
The term “Me Too” was coined in the year 2006 by an American social activist Tarana Burke who used it on Myspace for promoting “empowerment through empathy” among women who faced s*xual abuse.
She got the inspiration of using the term after she could not give any response to a 13-yr girl who told her of being a victim of s*xual assault. The social activist later wished if she could tell her, “Me Too”.
Later MeToo became viral when Alyssa Milano, an American actress, took to the micro-blogging site Twitter on 15th October, 2017, and motivated people to share their stories of s*xual harassment and assault.
Alyssa tweeted, “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.”
If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet. pic.twitter.com/k2oeCiUf9n
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) October 15, 2017
The results were overwhelming and apart from a number of men and women from across the globe, some celebs including Javier Muñoz, Lady Gaga, Evan Rachel Wood and Viola Davis also responded to the hashtag.
She made the tweet around noon and the phrase was used for over 200,000 times by the day’s end. And by 16th October, it had been tweeted for over 500,000 times. Talking about Facebook, it was used in 12 million posts by over 4.7 million individuals within 24 hours.
She was not surprised to know that a large mass has MeToo stories. Now it has reached even Bollywood and sports and many big names are said to have been involved in s*xual harassment which is not only shocking but also appalling.
