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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To struggle with #metoo

362 replies

BookyBook · 17/10/2017 09:29

Is anyone else struggling with this?

I can't even articulate why and why I am so reluctant to post #metoo myself, although don't want to not either. My FB thread is full of it and I didn't realise it was a thing to do until yesterday and it has completely blindsided me.

Having said that I think it makes a very strong point, I just feel a little teary about seeing all the #metoos today in a way that is making me relive my own experiences that I have trained myself not to think about too much usually.

Is anyone else the same?

OP posts:
LewisThere · 17/10/2017 21:43

I also wonder how many men are tutting bout the me toos without thinking about be times they have been guilty of low level harassment, especially in bars

I don't wonder why.
Because being reminded that touching a woman breast or bottom wo her agreement is ansexual assulat isn't nice. It's being reminded that actually they ARE one of those awful twats who doesn't respect women or the law.
That's also why they really don't want anyone to be aware how wide spread it is.
Because yes it does mean that your father, your brother, your neighbour's are likely to have been acting like a twat at some point too. It's not just the stupid guy down the road. It's the well respected, or the kind and nice guy that is part of the family.

So of course, they will be tutting.

LouLouLove · 17/10/2017 21:45

i agree. i don't feel this is something i want to put out there, it's private and i don't see how it will help anyone. i'm a big over sharer on social media but this doesn't sit right with me.

MummySparkle · 17/10/2017 21:47

YANBU. I only discovered it yesterday. I can’t do it, because I know that’s omeone will ask about it and I can’t be dealing with that

hellejuice91 · 17/10/2017 22:32

I have been sexually assaulted by four different people in my life. And have not placed #metoo on any social media. I feel that this current thread is devaluing what happened so many women as a number of the things that these women are talking about are things like being whistled in the street. To be that is not assault or even really harassment. I am not going to use #metoo as the incidents that happened to me were actual abuse/assaults and I don't want to be lumped in with people who are making a mountain out of a molehill (and I am not saying that everyone Is but a lot of the ones I have seen are)

GrockleBocs · 17/10/2017 22:34

And a man who I was mildly sexually assaulted by has now liked a post by a female friend suggesting men be less rapey. Angry

Jakeyboy1 · 17/10/2017 23:22

I agree. I felt like this last week with all the #1in4 and #waveoflight for baby loss week. Some things are too personal and can't bear to share. This doesn't mean I don't care or don't think the issue is important but I also don't need everyone else to know every private detail of my life or dig it up all over again.

Iusedtobeawerewolf · 17/10/2017 23:39

I posted #metoo and honestly have felt embarrassed all day. I kind of wish I hadn't bothered. No one gave a shit. I usually get 10-20 likes on mundane status' but not one one person acknowledged it and I even put an explanation up for people who might not know what it was. I feel such an idiot for posting it Blush

I was abused aged 4/5 so not much older than my Dd. I kept it a secret for 20+ years. I have always felt ashamed and like it was my fault. It destroyed my views on healthy relationships and sex and the way I have let men treat me in the past. As a teenager and an adult I have been sexually assaulted and manipulated into doing things I didn't want to do to avoid offending or upsetting the man. I was raped by Dd's dad more than once. I have laughed off crude and upsetting comments made to me by men to avoid offending them.

All this completely broke me and shattered my self worth. I still spend most of my life hating myself and feeling ashamed.

I naively thought it would give me some strength or would show solidarity among my friends or something, I don't know, but it has made me feel worse and dragged all the horrible memories up!

GrockleBocs · 18/10/2017 00:14

Oh werewolf Flowers
I hear you.

MissMoneyPlant · 18/10/2017 00:15
Flowers werewolf
Original poster
BookyBook · 18/10/2017 00:55

Werewolf that’s so hard

OP posts:
toomanyeggs · 18/10/2017 03:47

I hate all this talk of "it's meaningless" "it devalues what others went through" "bandwagon" "attention seeking" etc.

Sounds to me like that just another way to shut women up. "Oh you were groped, not raped...that's not too bad then" ..no, just no. It's not up to us, regardless of what we have lived through, to tell ANYONE, female or male that their experience isn't 'serious' compared to whatever. I am sorry for everyone who has lived through this, but do not start diminishing some one else's experience. You have no right.

I haven't been raped, or sexually assaulted as an adult female. I do not feel lucky, it is not lucky to not have my body violated, it is my basic right.

However, as a 5yr I was tricked into giving a grown man (who I knew), what I now know was a hand job. I remember being freaked out and running away. I never told anyone.

At 13 my then boyfriend (nearly 15) coerced me into performing a sexual act on him, and then told everyone. I didn't realise that I was coerced until a while later. I never told anyone.

At 13 a grown, high, drunk man shoved his tongue down my throat after I opened the door to adults who I was babysitting for. He stopped as soon as the mother of the kids told him I was 13. I never told anyone.

At 30, after sleeping over at my female friends house, and hearing that she had just had sex with her bf, he came into the room I was in (not asleep at that point) and said "now it's your turn" I told him to fuck off, he did. I never told anyone.

No, it wasn't rape. But for me, it was fucking serious and has now thrown up a lot of questions for me. And the last one, for what felt like a life time I really thought I was going to be raped. So don't tell me that it wasn't serious. Or meaningless. Or try to minimize it. Because to me, it is massive.

alltheworld · 18/10/2017 04:23

I posted me too on fb but not the details as a gesture of solidarity. Two things have struck me. Several of my close friends also posted me too but we have never discussed our experiences and secondly none of my male Facebook friends have posted about this. Until men start to realise that their reactions are part of the problem nothing will change.

BeyondNoone · 18/10/2017 08:29

I posted about a specific harassment incident, to hopefully stop people asking and wondering. I don't think it devalues serious assaults. I have been gang-raped, I just don't wish to talk about that on there, a smaller incident was easier whilst demonstrating how prevalent it is.

FresasAndFrambuesas · 18/10/2017 08:31

I haven't read the whole thread, but I found this article helped me pinpoint some of my discomfort: totalsororitymove.com/literally-why-cant-i-say-metoo/

BeyondNoone · 18/10/2017 08:33

Oh another thing. My minor recent assault - in my own home - has affected me much more than that rape. That incident was so "big", I didn't feel I was being ridiculously paranoid to be upset about it.
And I'd possibly been drugged then (or very drunk, or passed out - I don't know), so the memory has always been hazy. I remember every millisecond of the assault.

BishBoshBashBop · 18/10/2017 08:33

I naively thought it would give me some strength or would show solidarity among my friends or something, I don't know, but it has made me feel worse and dragged all the horrible memories up!

So sorry wolf. This is my issue with people feeling that they should or have to share.

PricklyBall · 18/10/2017 08:50

Flowers wolf

On the more general point I don't think the whole thing is "performative" (or whatever other silencing word is being used). The whole point is that there is a continuum from small acts of sexual aggression through to rape and serious sexual assault and this culture is utterly pervasive. So being groped on the tube is a reason to post metoo if you feel comfortable with that. But at the same time, no woman is obliged to post if she doesn't feel comfortable. (As I said upthread, my own personal feeling is that I won't post about my small stuff because I have friends who have been through very serious stuff - but that's my call, about my experiences, and in no way reflects on other women's decisions).

Someone made the point about Malcolm Gladwell and the "look after the broken windows" theory of policing - that's what this is aimed at. The culture of treating women as sexual objects is endemic, and needs to be tackled. (Not sure this will tackle it, but anything's worth a try.)

tiktok · 18/10/2017 09:08

wolf it's so sad you feel this way.

It's sad if ppl feel obliged to post, obliged to share.

That's not right.

I don't think lack of reaction (likes etc) necessarily means anything. It's hard to know how to react, what to say, whether in real life or not. FB's emojis don't do the job very well. Maybe some people don't react and don't comment cos they don't know the right thing to say. But they could be affected, and feel supportive, nonetheless.

I put #metoo. A big thing happened to me and I wouldn't dream of writing about it ever. I have written about lesser incidents and events and I honestly think they are on the other end of the same spectrum. Some men, at heart, think it doesn't really matter how women are treated, and that men's feelings and desires are more important. That lies behind cat calling, pressing against you on the tube, making humiliating remarks, as well as all varieties of assault and violence.

whiskyowl · 18/10/2017 09:13

This has already been said by a PP, but one of the most awful things about protesting inequality (of many kinds) is that the people doing the campaigning are often those who are the least powerful and who have suffered the most.

It's important to recognise that pain, but also to recognise that it's a fairly constant thing. Many of the black people protesting during the civil rights era would have had awful memories of violence, discrimination (including sexual discrimination) and indignity - and suffered still more during the course of the campaign. Many suffragettes were subjected to public derision and hatred, along with suffering pretty extreme deprivation and physical torture at the hands of the authorities. Being "triggered" is not a new phenomenon - it's one of the really exhausting, emotionally challenging parts of protest against normalised power structures. And one reason that many activists end up having to take breaks from causes because they are just so burned out.

IvorHughJars · 18/10/2017 09:44

This from Helen Lewis at the New Statesman:

True bravery would be a wave of guys acknowledging their own record of shitty jokes, casual sexism, disbelief and apathy, even if only among themselves. #MeToo indeed.

Hell yeah. Link if anyone's interested: www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/10/harvey-weinstein-allegations-are-monstrous-it-s-not-just-monsters-who-harass

QueenNefertitty · 18/10/2017 09:51

I want to post, but I cant: I can't even bring myself to post here what happened to me, because I still feel like it was my fault, even though I know logically it wasn't. The #metoo thing actually makes me feel ashamed, and complicit in rape culture.

whiskyowl · 18/10/2017 09:52

No, I'm sorry, it's not "bravery" for a guy who is a serial harasser and asaulter to acknowledge their mistakes. It's something they fucking OWE as a debt that is part and parcel of acknowledgement of wrong-doing and reform.

R2G · 18/10/2017 09:56

I thought if I wrote metoo it would really upset my elderly relatives who would want to know what happened.

BeyondNoone · 18/10/2017 09:57

Queen, it wasn't your fault (I know you logically
know that, but IMO it still helps to hear it). You are not complicit, you are a victim/survivor (depending on your preferred terminology) Flowers

disahsterdahling · 18/10/2017 10:01

I was going to say I've never been assaulted and then I remembered two incidents, both of which happened in Germany, and neither were perpetrated by Germans. The first one was an English colleague who smacked my bottom in a playful way as I was leaving the office one day. I did call him out on it and I don't remember any sort of malicious intent, he just didn't think - but then that's the problem, isn't it?

The other incident was when I was a student, one of my flatmates was from Palestine and one of his friends came into our kitchen, he was Tunisian I think and he just looked me up and down in a really horrible way. I just walked out of the room having given him a filthy look, but had I been in the UK I'd have given him what for, but my German wasn't up to it. It wasn't an assault but I felt really uncomfortable.