#MeToo campaign empowers women in Pittsburgh to join movement
The man would not leave Tanisha Long alone.
Last month, after a friend left early from a bar on East Carson Street, Ms. Long, 27, realized she would have to walk by herself to her car on a more desolate block near 12th Street on the South Side. As she headed out the door, the man followed.
“This guy had been hitting on me at the bar, and I turned him down 87 times,” said Ms. Long, a mobile phone sales consultant from Imperial. On the sidewalk, he grabbed her by the elbow, despite her loud protests.
It got worse. As she tried to walk away, he reached into her dress and pulled at her
underwear. At one point, Ms. Long said, there were others on the street but no one responded to her distress: “I was very vocal.”
The incident ended when Ms. Long encountered an acquaintance and that woman’s boyfriend. They went into another bar, where the stalker was turned away.
“Generally,” she said, “we don’t go out alone, we go out in a group. This was just a fluke.”
It didn’t matter that she was at a bar or wearing a dress. (“I’m a very curvy girl, but I don’t want to blame it on clothes.”) The problem is, as thousands agreed on social media in the past few days, society often views sexual harassment and assault as normal.
In response to allegations that Hollywood mega-producer Harvey Weinstein habitually harassed and sexually assaulted women, actress Alyssa Milano created the trending #MeToo hashtag at the suggestion of a friend.
She introduced it with a tweet Sunday, posting: “If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me Too’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.”
The campaign has swept across the country. As of late Monday afternoon, there were more than a half-million responses using the #MeToo hashtag — describing incidences in all scenarios.
One Pittsburgher who posted is Erin Cooper, 34, of Lawrenceville, who said sexual harassment is widespread in the service industry, in which she has worked for 16 years. While waiting tables, customers have pulled her toward them, grabbed her arms to look at her tattoos or touched her hair. Female bartenders also face such harassment, she added.
“It’s accepted if someone touches or talks to you offensively,” she said, citing bosses who have told her to “suck it up.”
Before events at the Ace Hotel, where Ms. Cooper is the events manager, she makes it clear to her 20-person staff that sexual harassment from guests is not acceptable. If an employee is harassed, the person is supposed to let Ms. Cooper or another manager know. Sometimes the staff member is pulled from the floor or the problem customer is asked to leave or refused alcohol.
Tipping can also create a sense of entitlement, Ms. Cooper said. “I’ve been in situations when I ask problem customers to leave, they always mention how much they’ve spent,” she said.
Nearly all of her friends who have worked in the service industry have posted on #MeToo, Ms. Cooper said. Even though the issue is still prevalent, she said the conversation is “much more open” and “women are feeling more empowered to speak up.”
Jessie Ramey, director of the Women’s Institute at Chatham the University,#MeToo campaigndescribed as a “grassroots movement to show solidarity and to demonstrate the pervasiveness of the problem.” Within Allegheny County, she emphasized that young black girls are especially vulnerable and are more likely to experience teen dating violence, threats of violence and rape. While men and nonbinary individuals are also victims of sexual harassment and assault, the numbers always focus on how many girls are affected instead of how many men are perpetrators, Ms. Ramey said. “We always talk about that data as if it just happens to women and girls.”
As Facebook versions of the #MeToo added to the trend, sexual harassment was not limited to men harassing just women. Javier Munoz, who replaced Lin-Manuel Miranda in the title role of “Hamilton” on Broadway, tweeted “Me too. I don’t know if it means anything coming from a gay man but it’s happened. Multiple times.”
Twitter says it is rolling out new safety rules. CEO Jack Dorsey responded to a #WomenBoycottTwitter campaign with the announcement that it would be making changes to protect users from “unwanted sexual advances, non-consensual nudity, hate symbols, violent groups and tweets that glorifies violence.”
Initiatives such as #MeToo might not change everything, said Ms. Long, the woman from Imperial, but it’s a good start. “For lesser people, the people who aren’t the big names, these women are going to feel more emboldened by their experiences.
“I’d been following the rise in women finally coming out and supporting other women through their stories. It felt important to be a part of that. I myself have had so many experiences but it took a while for me to be comfortable telling anyone.”