Eight years ago, I was defined as a victim. I was a victim of sexual assault. Compassion is the most common reaction to this confession. Compassion for the pain, trauma, violation, distrust, depression, and nightmares. That is, before 2018. In 2018, a political movement called #MeToo rose to an almost celebrity status. #MeToo was a movement founded in 2006 to support and encourage rape victims to share their story. One of the #MeToo’s slogans is the #BelieveWomen, which raised so much controversy that it has shaken the #MeToo’s foundation, and led supporters to doubt the movement’s morals. Although many victims don’t associate themselves with #MeToo, the movement dragged down the credibility of all rape victims when its controversal ideas and statements went a little too far. Even though this movement was made to do good, it turned into just another political tool, which ruined the whole concept.

Despite bad publicity, the movement was founded a decade prior by Tarana Burke whose main goal was to embolden women and girls to come forward against their offenders. Burke herself was a victim of sexual assault, and so her founding this group was an inspiration to other victims who had kept their stories to themselves. There were thousands of women sharing their stories online, passing on the hashtag, which started as a way to show other quieter victims that, as Helen Lewis said, “Sexual harassment and sexual assault are so endemic in society that they make the coronavirus look like a rare tropical disease.” #MeToo also made companies rethink their attitude towards sexual assault in the workplace; for example, Jim Priest, an experienced employment lawyer, says that one of the best found approaches to sexual assault in the workplace is the T*I*P* approach. Train employees in actions to take, Investigate all allegations promptly, and Policy, which means have a practical and understandable policy that employees can follow (Borysenko).

    Two years ago, the slogan #BelieveWomen came about against the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The entire #MeToo organization flourished with high publicity and held several rallies and protests against the president’s nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to be a Supreme Court justice. The nominee was accused of rape by Blasey Ford in July of 2018, and by October, when the allegations were found to be false, #MeToo was associated with the Democrat political party. The motto of the movement became #BelieveWomen, with an implied all. Which meant that women with allegations of rape should be believed automatically. With the new widespread awareness of sexual assault, and the Kavanaugh Hearings finding the allegations of Ford to be false, it embedded a fear in the workplace. An upwards of 60% of men are afraid to mentor women, or be alone at a workplace without a third-party present (Borysenko). Alan Dershowitz, a victim of a false accusation and famous lawyer, said, “If you call a woman a liar, even if you didn’t do [what you’re being accused of], you’re guilty of calling a woman a liar, so there’s no way out. If you don’t deny it, you’re thought to be guilty” (Borysenko).The lawyer couldn’t have explained the trap of the #MeToo movement better. The whole movement lumps other cases and Blasey Ford together, demanding that politicians, the media, and observers treat their stories exactly the same, but no case can be treated like another(Lewis).

    From my own experiences, I know how it feels to not want to come out and tell the world full of complete strangers what happened to you. In truth, only about 35% of rapes are reported to police, and somewhere between two and ten percent of those are false allegations (Kay). What holds survivors back from sharing their story is shame, their vulnerability, and the fear that their tales won’t be believed. This fear of being blown-off as a liar is only multiplied by the discredibility spread by the #MeToo movement’s advocacy for Blasey Ford. Now, despite my personal grief, when I hear the story of another victim, I almost instantly want to ask more questions, and I suspect them to be lying. I can’t help but wonder if others doubt my own account of my life, I mean, girls are even less believed than women.

    What had started as a platform to support rape victims has warped into a problem for almost all survivors. Yes, I’m a victim like the thousands, probably millions, others out there, but I don’t let it define me, and I don’t need or want sympathy of a falsely advertised “non”-political group. For the present, I do feel safer going through my life, because in spite of its short falls, #MeToo has spread awareness and did its part to make the world a safer place.

Works Cited

Borysenko, Karlyn. “The Dark Side of #MeToo: What Happens When Men Are Falsely 

Accused.” Forbes. 12 Feb 2020. Web.

forbes.com/sites/karlynborysenko/2020/02/12/the-dark-side-of-metoo-what-

happens-when-men-are-falsely-accused/?sh=425f4629864d 

Kay, Katty. “The Truth About False Assault Accusations By Women”. BBC World News. 18 Sep 

2018. Web.

    bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45565684 

Lewis, Helen. “Why I’ve Never Believed in ‘Believe Women’.” The Atlantic. 14 May 2020. Web.

theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/05/believe-women-bad-slogan-joe-biden-tara-reade/611617/ 

Weiss, Bari. “The Limits of ‘Believe All Women’.” The New York Times. 28 Nov 2017. Web.

nytimes.com/2017/11/28/opinion/metoo-sexual-harassment-believe-women.html