Time magazine has just come out with a powerful message as part of its December issue naming the hashtag #MeToo movement as Times person of the year 2017. It features what its editor calls the SILENCE BREAKERS. Women who have suffered sexual harassment at some point in their lives and who are now speaking up as part of a nationwide movement. What is most symbolic is its cover that features not just the women it chose to feature in the cover story but an elbow of an invisible woman. It isn’t a picture cut on purpose; rather it is symbolic of that repressed voice, the countless number of women facing sexual harassment but fear to come out in the open because of family pressure or repercussions at the workplace. The silence breaker is a tribute to one growing voice.
In a special interview, Time editor in chief Edward Felsenthal stated that the obscured woman was symbolic of people who have still not found the courage to come forward. Said Felsenthal in a statement “The galvanizing actions of the women on our cover … along with those of hundreds of others, and of many men as well, have unleashed one of the highest-velocity shifts in our culture since the 1960s,"
So what exactly is the issue all about?? It is all about the #MeToo movement and that is being honored as Times person of the year 2017. It isn’t just one person but a collective voice. The story also features various personalities whose interviews have been revealed in the issue. Taylor Swift, Ashley Judd, Adama Iwu, Susan Fowler who was a former Uber engineer and a woman whose name was changed to protect her identity, Isabel Pascual.
Felsenthal says that it is important for all these women to understand that they aren’t alone. “This is the fastest moving social change we’ve seen in decades and it began with individual acts of courage by hundreds of women – and some men, too – who came forward to tell their own stories,” Felsenthal told NBC News, calling them “the silence breakers”.
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The silence breakers were actually triggered and fuelled by accusations against film executive Harvey Weinstein who chalked up a huge list of accusations of his sexual misconduct. This created a domino effect resulting in personalities coming out with their own accusations against other famous personalities in Hollywood, journalism, politics and the music industry.
The feature has gone on to prove that such deplorable incidents do not make distinctions and women irrespective of their social status are targeted everywhere. The story introduces the concept of movie stars and how we assume that they may be glamorous, rich and much unlike us in society, but!! They are very much like all women in the most painful way possible and that is as victims of sexual harassment. The # MeToo movement won hands down in a poll conducted by Time to choose who should be its person of the year. There were 10 contenders. But not to deviate from the main story, read on what happen to the five personalities.
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Ashley Judd came out in the open to accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexually harassing her. She was 29 at the time. It was 1997 at the start of her career when Harvey invited her for a meeting at a Beverly Hills Hotel. Weinstein attempted to coerce her into bed but she escaped his advances. Judd immediately voiced her ordeal in public “"Literally, I exited that hotel room at the Peninsula Hotel in 1997 and came straight downstairs to the lobby, where my dad was waiting for me, because he happened to be in Los Angeles from Kentucky, visiting me on the set. And he could tell by my face—to use his words—that something devastating had happened to me. I told him. I told everyone."
Judd says her advice to women is to formalize a whisper network and women should never keep such things to themselves. She says that when something is wrong, it is wrong and that definition of wrong should be from the victim’s perspective and not anyone else’s. Weinstein denied her accusations.
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Fowler posted in her blog about the harassment she faced at work. The post went viral and caught the attention of authorities. CEO Travis Kalanick and 20 employees were fired. Fowler revealed how other women faced repercussions when speaking out. She empathized that her intentions were to make the post in her blog as cold and close to the truth as possible so that one could say she was doing it for gain or a suing the company.
“I have to be very, very detached.’ And I had to make sure that every single thing that I included in there had extensive physical documentation, so it couldn’t be ‘he said, she said.’ And that’s what I did.”
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Taylor Swift relates how she was made to feel bad about the fact that her accuser would be facing severe consequences. She had complained about a Denver radio DJ named David Mueller who groped her beneath her skirt during a photo op in 2013. Swift was sued for millions but she instead made a countersuit for just a symbolic fear to vilify her stand, she also testified in August where Mueller’s lawyer even asked her if she felt bad about getting him fired. This is when she stated "I'm not going to let you or your client make me feel in any way that this is my fault," she told the lawyer. "I'm being blamed for the unfortunate events of his life that are a product of his decisions. Not mine."
Swift said later that she was fed up of being intimidated and enough was enough, if he could do it to an artist of her status, then think of what he may be doing to hundreds of young vulnerable aspiring artists lacking the courage to come forward. Swift echoed the cry of the #MeToo movement where actors, journalists, hotel workers and even dishwashers felt they had had enough. Shame had turned to outrage and fury.
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Like Swift and Judd, the rest of the women gracing the cover each spoke about their experiences. Adama Iwu a forty-year-old lobbyist initiated a petition to investigate sexual harassment in the California Capital that resulted in a statewide investigation. She herself investigated how several young women confided in her about the same men. She describes it as a whisper network and decided to organize it into a single voice because 147 victims can’t be wrong. And! This is a powerful phrase; she exclaimed: “We can’t all be sluts.”
Isabel Pascual 42 a strawberry picker relayed how she was repeatedly harassed by a co-worker who kept pressing himself onto her and kissing her. Pascual a Native American and just 22 at the time felt suffocated and trapped in her situation. She finally quit her job. She says on the reservation, no one speaks up as it was a situation where ‘You’re not supposed to do that. You’re not supposed to speak up.'” src-Time magazine.
The #MeToo became a rallying badge, a war cry for women across the USA to rally against harassment. Tamara Burke a social activist first used it as part of her solidarity building efforts among victims and survivors of harassment. Taylor Swift’s friend, Alyssa Milano sent Swift a screenshot of the phrase. Milano again tweeted out the same on Oct 15 just by a whim saying "If you've been sexually harassed or assaulted write 'me too' as a reply to this tweet,” When she woke up the next morning, there were 30,000 replies with the hashtag MeToo. She had unknowingly started a movement.
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The hashtag spread from among the entertainment industry to the people. By November it had reached far and wide involving employees, farmhands, and workers like Pscual who were then seen marching on Hollywood streets in solidarity with the stars who faced harassment. Fowler says “Women were no longer alone.”There's something really empowering about standing up for what's right," says Fowler, who has grown comfortable with her new reputation as a whistle-blower. "It's a badge of honor.”
The MeToo hashtag spread like wildfire worldwide where more and more women in different countries like England accused personalities in entertainment, industry, and politics of sexual misconduct. #MeToo had become a power surge and a bolster for women around the world. It is this voice that time is now honoring as its person of the year 2017.
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