All these campaigns on Facebook kind of pass me ignoring it, because I find it toothless. Usually I find it irritating. I never really see any change after a campaign.
When the metoo campaign started I got surprised how big it turned out. I found it very good actually. I don’t believe there is a single woman I know that hasn’t been at least once put in an “awkward” situation by a man.
However, reading the paper about the poor prostitutes I got freaked out. I mean horrors these women experience, in “peaceful” SWEDEN are so bad I cannot even grasp the horrors a human mind can come up with. I hope for their sake that this metoo campaign will have an impact on their lives but as with many other things I think unfortunately that the poorest and the most vulnerable people in our pyramid of society will never reach out to get or have a voice…
Reading how it all started I got sad, angry and horrified….Here the story of the first “metoo” move.
Sve ove kampanje na Facebooku većinom ignorišem, jer mi je to bezobzirno. Obično mi je to čak i iritantno. Nikada ne vidim promijene nakon neke kampanje.
Kada je započela #metoo kampanja, iznenadila sam se kako je postala velika. Smatram to dobrim. Ne vjerujem da postoji ijedna žena koju znam da nijednom nije došla u “neprijatnu” situaciju sa nekim momkom ili čovjekom.
Međutim, čitajući članak o siromašnim prostitutkama mene je presjeklo. Mislim užase koje ove žene doživljavaju, u “mirnoj” Švedskoj su toliko grozne da moj mozak ne može da shvati užase koji ljudski um može da izmisli.
Nadam se zbog toga da će ova metoo kampanja imati uticaj na ove živote, ali kao i mnoge druge stvari, mislim da će, nažalost, najsiromašniji i najugroženiji ljudi u našem društvu -djeca i žene, ostati bez glasa .. .
Čitajući kako je sve počelo, postala sam tužna, ljuta i užasnuta …. Evo priče o prvom “metoo” potezu.
Iz nekog razloga mi nece link da proradi pa sam kopirala tekst.
Since the link for some reason doesn’t work Ii copied the text.
The me too Movement™ started in the deepest, darkest place in my soul.
As a youth worker, dealing predominately with children of color, I had seen and heard my share of heartbreaking stories from broken homes to abusive or neglectful parents when I met Heaven. During an all girl bonding session at our youth camp, several of the girls in the room shared intimate stories about their lives. Some were the tales of normal teenage angst and others were quite painful. Just as I had done so many times before, I sat and listened to the stories, and comforted the girls as needed. When it was over the adults advised the young women to reach out to us in the event that they needed to talk some more or needed something else – and then we went our separate ways.
The next day Heaven, who had been in the previous night’s session, asked to speak to me privately. Heaven was a sweet-faced little girl who kind of clung to me throughout the camp. However, her hyperactive and often anger-filled behavior betrayed both her name and light, high-pitched voice and I was frequently pulling her out of some type of situation. As she attempted to talk to me that day though the look in her eyes sent me in the other direction. She had a deep sadness and a yearning for confession that I read immediately and wanted no part of. Finally, later in the day she caught up with me and almost begged me to listen…and I reluctantly conceded. For the next several minutes this child, Heaven, struggled to tell me about her “stepdaddy” or rather her mother’s boyfriend who was doing all sorts of monstrous things to her developing body…I was horrified by her words, the emotions welling inside of me ran the gamut, and I listened until I literally could not take it anymore…which turned out to be less than 5 minutes. Then, right in the middle of her sharing her pain with me, I cut her off and immediately directed her to another female counselor who could “help her better.”
I will never forget the look on her face.
I will never forget the look because I think about her all of the time. The shock of being rejected, the pain of opening a wound only to have it abruptly forced closed again – it was all on her face. And as much as I love children, as much as I cared about that child, I could not find the courage that she had found. I could not muster the energy to tell her that I understood, that I connected, that I could feel her pain. I couldn’t help her release her shame, or impress upon her that nothing that happened to her was her fault. I could not find the strength to say out loud the words that were ringing in my head over and over again as she tried to tell me what she had endured… I watched her walk away from me as she tried to recapture her secrets and tuck them back into their hiding place. I watched her put her mask back on and go back into the world like she was all alone and I couldn’t even bring myself to whisper…me too.
– Tarana Burke
Founder, Just Be Inc.