As news outlets became embroiled during the course of last week with the revelations of American film producer and co-founder of Miramax Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assault and rape accusations, the hashtag #metoo surfaced on Facebook and Twitter with women around the world sharing their own individual stories of sexual assault and harassment.
As I read through the harrowing experiences of women on my Facebook timeline along with those slipped into several news articles by prominent figures, I reflected on my own experiences and tried to categorize and count the times I would have been harassed sexually or verbally by a man. There were many. It was and still is very embarrassing for me to say that during my early teenage years, much of what I experienced and witnessed as it relates to sexual harassment were the unfortunate and displeasing events that women and girls had to put up with and grow through because, well, we are women. This is the nice way of saying that we were seen as second-class beings, acknowledged but never equal. I was made to feel that though I was engaging in a modest lifestyle and my per norm behaviour, like listening to Spice, I always had to guard my behaviour, ensure it wasn’t