Written by: Kimberly Curth, Reporter,
Read the original story HERE
NEW ORLEANS, LA (WVUE) –
A social media campaign is empowering women across the country to take a stand against sexual assault and harassment. And all you have to do is take one look at your social media feed to see how prevalent it is.
“So many of our sexual assault victims have been calling us. Our therapists deal with victims all the time. I know for sure they are participating in this,” said Mary Claire Landry, director of the New Orleans Family Justice Center.
You’ve likely seen posts with the words “Me Too,” on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. After the Harvey Weinstein scandal, actress Alyssa Milano tweeted, “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘Me Too’ as a reply to this tweet.”
The director of the New Orleans Family Justice Center, a non-profit dedicated to ending sexual assault and domestic violence says they’re thrilled that women are coming forward and now have an opportunity to claim what happened to them publicly without shame or embarrassment.
“This is so prevalent in our communities and in our country that the only way it is going to be exposed is through taking the veil off of it and to say we’re not going to put up with this anymore,” said Landry.
Tulane University social media expert Ashley Nelson says she’s never seen a movement take off like this one has, especially in such a short period of time.
“I think this whole campaign is giving women and young girls a platform to say hey me too, me too obviously from the tag line but it’s kind of okay now to say I’ve been sexually harassed or someone has done something to me and it’s okay because this whole community of the world is embracing them,” said Nelson.
And, Landry believes the movement will empower even more women to come forward.
“We know that one in four women experience sexual assault or domestic violence in their lifetime, that is one out of every four women that you know in your life and so that is a huge number of women and many of them don’t speak up because they are embarrassed, they somehow think this is their fault,” said Landry.
If you have been the victim of sexual assault, you can find help here https://nofjc.org/ at the New Orleans Family Justice Center.