Week 5

I wasnt able to attend week 4's class since it had been moved to Thursday and I had work.

This class however kicked off with the group project #MeToo, our groups for it have been changed to account for the new students taking part. It took a bit of coaxing and name calling before everyone began to talk freely. I voiced my opinion and understanding of the title of the brief initially, my point wasn't put across very well but I was trying to explain how non-threatening it is to share information online. Many people keep coming forward about there sexual harassment experiences and the point I was making was how the first person to come forward was at a major risk because she had no idea if anyone would listen to her, or if she would be fired or told to stay quiet but since her voice was heard and action was taken against the abuser many more people are able to come forward without as big of a threat of loosing your career etc. This is good and bad, because many people find it easy to hide behind screens and make wild accusations with little or no consequence while for others it is a much less intimidating way to voice concerning stories due to the lack of emotion you have to portray and the lack of people physically watching. This topic of abuse of the hastag was brought up later on in class.

A point another student made was how the hashtag wasnt a new thing, it had been around for years prior. I never knew this and it almost made me sad to see how Tarana Burke's work was being ignored and twisted by others. She created the hashtag for specifically women of colour who experienced sexual violence. Im not saying the people who popularized it are at fault for this, they came forward and that in itself is amazing, but the more people who come forward to more twisted the idea behind the project becomes as its bending the line between sexual assault and sexual harassment. This was a point also made by another student, that she wasn't such what she was agreeing to by using the #MeToo. I agree and disagree with her point, I like how light has been brought to the subject but the more light thats shon the more people want to step into it even if they don't belong.

Something that was also discussed was how back when the hashtag was made there was no internet really and it didnt gain as much popularity as compared to today, social media has the ability to make things completely explode and be heard about all over the world in a matter of days.

Towards the end of class the point of accountability came up. Its becoming and issue with people wanting to jump on the bandwaggon even if they have to fabricate or exaggerate a story. Its a really big problem in my option because it is very easy to make a sexual harassment claim against someone with no evidence, it can ruin there reputation and career even though the person making the claim might be lying or blowing things out of proportion just for revenge or 5 minutes of fame. Even if it is found out to be a lie the damage has already been done, not a lot of people will see that the claim was busted compared to how many will see the initial accusation. People should be 100% responsible for there words and defamation of character really needs to be brought into action more.

There was tons more small points made that I cant fully remember but for the most part thats it! Im hoping to meet up with my group and start communicating our ideas because we haven't done that yet. This post was also late, Im catching up on lots of work and will be a bit freer to work on things from now on. Im hoping for the next class to try raise the point that male sexual harassment needs more light shon on it since more males are raped than women but more women talk about there rape than men.

Thats all, hopefully ill be back next week ':D