#MeTooHillside

#MeToo at Hillside

The women of today’s society face many challenges due to their gender. Along with unequal pay, job discrimination, and not having allegations taken seriously, women face sexual harassment and assault even from a young age. Here in the United States sexual harassment and assault has become normalized and is just another part of woman's life.

The U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission describes that “harassment can include “sexual harassment” or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature.”

According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in four girls will be sexually abused before they turn 18 years old. 63 percent of sexual assaults are not reported to the police.

At Hillside high school many women faced or have faced these problems. “I was 10 at a party and was assaulted by an older family member, I didn’t tell anyone because I scared of ruining a family relationship, when I eventually told someone it was another family member and they told me not to tell anyone,” a student at Hillside who has decided to remain anonymous told me.

The hashtag #metoo has been on the rise since 2017 following the Harvey Weinstein allegations of sexual abuse. The Me Too movement was founded in 2006 by Tarana Bruke to bring awareness to the sexual abuse and assault going on in society.

“When I was 18 a friend of mine assaulted me. I blamed myself at the time,” said a staff member at Hillside who decided to remain anonymous. She says how her biology teacher had several times mentioned to the class about the existence of Plan B. Otherwise, she would not have known about it. She was able to get Plan B after her assault, but it wasn’t easy for her to obtain it. She tells me how the MeToo movement has made her reflect on what happened. She feels like it’s important for boys and girls to have a sex education so they can talk about it freely and make informed, educated choices..

Both of these stories back up the statistic that 90 percent of victims know their abuser.

Hillside Sophomore Viviana Davila, 16, said, “Every time I go somewhere, like, the store guys will look at me and one time I heard someone say ‘damn’ and was looking at my butt. They weren’t even my age, they were in their late 30s.”

“It made me feel very uncomfortable. It’s not a compliment if I don’t feel comfortable, they could be proper about it,” Davila said.

5 out of 7 women surveyed said that they’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted.