Why I'm saying #metoo

For the last week, all of my social media has been filled with heartbreaking stories and a simple hashtag, and the number of posts I've seen doesn't even scratch the surface of the number of events that prompted them.

Every girl has one. I don't mean that we all have a big, scary, horrific story like so many do. I mean we all have something that is the reason we're scared to be in places like parking garages alone or why we remind ourselves to fill up our cars during the day if we know we'll be out late. The ones that make me grateful for friends that stand between me and strangers on the D.C. metro when they see the stares, or stories that make me walk three paces faster than normal to keep up with my boyfriend while exploring the strip.

It's every comment I got as a waitress about how the girls on staff should unbutton their shirts a little bit more or wear tighter pants on big game nights to "please the crowd" because "it will pay off, I promise."
It's every remark at every house party in college about not being slutty enough and how girls shouldn't be so afraid to "have fun."
It's every guy who's wanted a kiss he thinks he deserves after the first date.
It's the cook at the restaurant I worked at in college that every girl was warned to never be alone with and to always bring somebody else along if he asked for a ride home--the same one who kept his job even after one of the girls filed a sexual assault report because "he's our best cook and we couldn't do the morning shift without him."
It's every whistle out of a car that makes your skin crawl.
It's every time I heard a friend or sorority sister tell another "who was it, I'll fight him" after hearing a recap of the weekend.
It's pretending to be on a phone call when you walk down the street by someone who looks off.
It's the leers and the cat-calls and the "you know you want to's" that every girl can bring to mind without more than a few seconds thought.
It's making your gay best friend pretend to be your boyfriend for the night because that's 100x easier than explaining to someone that you're just not interested.
It's the client who refused to listen to me because I was a woman in a male-dominated industry and told me I "clearly didn't know what [I] was talking about" but listened to my male coworker repeat, word for word, what I said and respond enthusiastically that it was a great idea.


I'm lucky that I haven't experienced anything traumatic or devastating like so many have. And that's not because I dress differently or lead people on any less but purely because I'm lucky. And it makes me a little sick to think that it's such an ever present thing that the only way to avoid it is to be lucky.

So while I don't have a story to add to the scores of them we've all seen, I say #metoo because I know what it's like to be uncomfortable or scared. Like Kirsten King said, "these are not just two words or one instance - this is the world [we] have been conditioned to live in, and it needed to change yesterday."