BACK IN THE DAY
It all started on October 5, 2017 when actress Ashley Judd very publicly accused film executive Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment. A few days later, actress Alyssa Milano tweeted, “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.” Social media was flooded with stories. I remember this, I tweeted. It was a big deal. But I didn’t realize the #MeToo movement began back in 2006.1
NURSES TOO
Last Thursday night, I sat down in a room with almost 700 other humans to listen to Tarana Burke, the founder of the #MeToo Movement. Tarana has been at the forefront of the movement to support survivors and break the silence surrounding sexual assault. In recognition of her efforts, she was on the cover of Time Magazine back in 2017 as a person of the year. She was speaking at a fundraising event in my hometown to benefit the local rape crisis and prevention center. As I looked around, I wondered how many other people in the room were nurses. The kind of people drawn to nursing are often those who have been deeply hurt. Some of us seek healing and resolution in helping others. Nurses can be at the forefront of identifying survivors and supporting them through the healing process. Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANE nurses) deal with sexual assault every day.2 Due to the sexualization of nurses in the media, nurses can be victims of sexual harassment from patients as well as supervisors and coworkers.3
IN THE CLUB
The #MeToo Movement isn’t a club anyone wants to belong to. However, the acknowledgement of survivorship, of the need to listen and believe survivors has made it easier to be in the club. For so long, sexual assault was a taboo subject for conversation, so survivors often felt alone and isolated. I know I did. I remember back in 1986, I had the courage to share what happened to me with my best friend in high school, but she was not equipped to handle that information, and my halting story of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of my stepfather was met with uncomfortable silence. That experience scarred me, and it took me a long time to find the courage to tell other people. The older I get, the stronger I am, and I am less afraid of how others will react. If they are uncomfortable, I try to remember that’s their problem (though I am aware that burdening a captive audience isn’t fair or right – I don’t share with my students unless it’s a very, very unusual circumstance -- in which sharing might provide healing). Fortunately, now that the #MeToo movement has happened, the taboo of sharing and the stigma of being a survivor have lessened a great deal, though they are still present. As a survivor of sexual assault, it is incredibly healing and uplifting to know I am not alone. Still, sexual assault is a touchy, uncomfortable topic, and I was nervous about what the speaker might say.
I BELIEVE YOU
I was immediately put at ease when Tarana started off by letting us know that there were staff present to support those struggling with the message. As the staff stood up and we all applauded, I choked up and tears sprang to my eyes (that cry was only the first of many). I’m actually tearing up now, thinking about how safe it felt to know that there are highly trained professionals around who are willing and ready to support survivors through a crisis. Ms. Burke also made a point of lifting us up with words of positivity, speaking of the gratitude, joy, beauty, healing and power to be found in the room. She said, “It’s not all about sadness, it’s about transformation. I am bearing witness to transformation.” Tarana gave us hope by saying, “We are here to talk about possibility of eradicating sexual violence. We are the mouthpiece and the voice. Carry the message.” (Second cry of the evening.)
She gave us some historical perspective. After the #MeToo Movement exploded in 2017, there was a 26% increase in reports of sexual assault at our local rape crisis center. Did that mean a 26% increase in violence in my home town? No, it meant that a safe space for survivors to name what had happened to them had been created. In that space we said to each other, “I believe you, you didn’t deserve what happened, and we are here for you.” (Third cry of the night.)
COMMITTED TO SOCIAL JUSTICE
Ms. Burke has spent 25 years of her life committed to social justice. She founded Just Be Inc, a nonprofit initially created for young women of color who survived sexual assault.4 Tarana spoke eloquently about the importance of putting the focus back on survivors, where it belongs saying, “We must center survivors.” Centering is a term that means giving focus and light to the folks who have been harmed, rather than to the people who have been the perpetrators.
Ms. Burke also spoke about her heritage and how she was raised. Go to her website to learn more and do more 5. Tarana told us that during her childhood, sexual violence hadn’t been introduced as a social or racial issue. I can identify since she is only 5 years younger than I am. As we were growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, it wasn’t talked about at all. By the time Tarana was in high school, she was already a survivor of sexual assault, yet she had told no one. She was just one of the 25% of girls and 17% of boys who are sexually abused in the U.S. before turning 18.6 She told us of a revelation she had while sitting in honors English, listening to a recording of Maya Angelou. Ms. Burke told us she ran out of the classroom crying because she said, “I heard conviction in her voice. She believed it. She believed she was phenomenal. I thought we shared a secret about how to fake it.” Before she heard Angelou’s voice, Tarana had thought, “I’ll be as good as Maya Angelou so the world won’t find out that I’m broken, but her voice sounded like she had figured out what joy felt like.” (Fourth cry of the night, a really deep one, so ridiculous, the kind where you cry so hard you make noise…I had snot running down my face.)
At the age of 21, while Tarana was leading a sharing session at an all-girl camp, a young girl who had been Ms. Burke’s problem child during that camp session came up to her and said “I’ve got something to tell you.” Ms. Burke described what happened next, “She then proceeded to describe what her mom’s boyfriend had done to her. It was probably 5 minutes, but it felt like an eternity. My body felt sick, lightheaded. I didn’t know what to say, what am I supposed to say right now, so scared, I’m not trained for this. She wouldn’t stop. I wanted to say me too, but I definitely wasn’t going to say that to this child. I cut her off and said, I can’t help you. I saw disappointment and sadness in her face. She put the tough girl act back on and walked away. I wish I had said me too, it would have been enough, it would have made a difference.” You can read more about this interaction here.7
That experience inspired Tarana to provide a safe space for that kind of talk, to invoke that kind of courage. She knew it had to be simple and it had to be enough. That’s when she started JustBeInc.4
Ms. Burke talked about the difficulty with language. Children have no language to describe what hurts. “The words me too can open the conversation, but we had to give them the words to tell us what was wrong.” As the disclosures started coming in from children, she also started seeing messages from grown women saying Thank you for starting this. How can we get involved? Bring this to our community! Ms. Burke and her colleagues began to realize the adults didn’t have language or safe spaces either. They didn’t have people saying, “I see you and I believe you.” Ms. Burke said, “I knew what it was like to hold that knowledge in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to say, you’re not nasty, you’re not bad or fast, it’s not your fault and you’re not alone.” (Fifth cry of the evening.)
PART 2
This article is going long, so I just cut it in half and plopped the rest of it in part 2. Stay tuned to learn about how sexual violence is related to social injustice, statistics about sexual violence that will inspire you to do something, and how you can take action to eradicate sexual violence. I’ll also talk about some misconceptions about the #MeToo movement, accountability, the Violence Against Women Act and end with some inspiring words from Tarana Burke, my new hero.
REFERENCES
- MeToo: A Time Line of Events
- Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner
- Sexual Assault in Nursing - Its More Common than You Think
- JustBe, Inc.
- Me Too - The Inception
- National Sexual Violence Resource Center
- Tarana Burke Talks to a Pittsburgh Crowd About the Roots of #MeToo
