"But we can't fire or imprison our way out of this - it's too big and too complex," @Jane Stevens wrote yesterday about the #MeToo moment we are in right now. I'm thinking about her post, all the headlines and what's happening now. I'm also listening to what Tarana Burke is saying. She founded the #MeToo movement over a decade ago and has experiences and insights based on that work, this work, our work. Her words are helping to anchor and guide me. Maybe they will help you as well. Here are excerpts (and video) from a piece published in Business Insider.
#MeToo is a movement that was founded in 2006 to support survivors of sexual violence, in particular black and brown girls, who were in the program that we were running. It has grown since then to include supporting grown people, women, and men, and other survivors, as well as helping people to understand what community action looks like in the fight to end sexual violence.
I was working and living in Alabama at the time, and we started this organization called Just Be Inc. And that was about teaching the young women who we work with, helping them develop a sense of self-worth. Which we differentiated from self-esteem. Right? Our theory was that you have to build a sense of self-worth before you even have a healthy self-esteem.
We were encountering numbers of girls who were disclosing sexual violence. They were disclosing their experiences. And sometimes they didn't even know that it was sexual violence. Right? They would just tell us things like ... I had a 7th-grade girl, 12 years old, say to me once, her boyfriend was 21 years old. And I thought, that's not a relationship. That's a crime.
One thing Burke said that resonates deeply for me is this:
"A lot of time survivors aren't even asking for people to be fired. A lot of times they just want their story to be told. They want to say it out loud and have some level of accountability.
We have to talk to survivors for what they need. We are the ones who have to define what justice looks like."
She also speaks about social justice and the work that has and is being done. Burke said:
And so the other part of it is around community action. We firmly believe that you can organize around ending sexual violence. People do every day. There are organizations and groups that do that, and I feel like we need to elevate this conversation to a social justice issue."
For the article and video, go here.
Comments (0)