Applause for Time’s ‘silence breakers’
Pittsburghers say magazine’s choice is ‘watershed moment’
Pittsburgh City Councilwoman Natalia Rudiak only has to glance at her desk to see the impact that the #metoo campaign has had on fellow sexual assault survivors.
“It’s heartbreaking actually,” she said, reading from a letter on her desk describing a college sexual assault sent to her from a woman who graduated high school in 1961.
That letter is among hundreds of stories that Ms. Rudiak heard after sharing instances of sexual assault and harassment on her private Facebook page in October, using the hashtag #metoo to join women — and some men — worldwide.
Wednesday morning, Time magazine bestowed its “Person of the Year” honor on the “silence breakers” who spoke out this year as survivors of sexual assault and harassment, sending shockwaves through government, Hollywood, media and many other industries.
“I feel like this is really a watershed moment in this broader movement,” said Kristy Trautmann, executive director of the Downtown-based FISA Foundation, which advocates on behalf of girls, women and the disabled. “This is a sea change in attitudes.”
The #metoo social media movement surged immediately following a New York Times story documenting movie producer Harvey Weinstein’s systematic sexual advances toward women seeking employment. According to the Time magazine story, actress Alyssa Milano tweeted a photo of the slogan “me too,” developed more than a decade ago by activist Tarana
Burke, and woke up the next morning to find that more than 30,000 people had embraced the hashtag.
The campaign — and associated media reports of harassment against luminaries such as Mr. Weinstein, Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly and comedian Louis C.K. — emboldened more women to come forward, and for their concerns to be taken seriously.
“Women have always been courageous, but as a public we have not supported them,” said Ms. Trautmann, citing a statistic in the Time story noting that 85 percent of people say they believe the women making sexual harassment allegations.
Ms. Trautmann also praised the Time story for spotlighting not only celebrity women, but also women from all walks of life, including employees at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, a strawberry picker from Mexico, and a hospital worker who didn’t show her face in the story for fear of retribution.
Locally and across the state, some agencies that assist those with claims of sexual assault have noticed an increase in reports to their crisis hotlines.
“We’ve seen an increase in calls related to sexual assault, especially sexual harassment,” said Ann Emmerling, executive director of the Blackburn Center in Greensburg, which provides services to victims of domestic and sexual violence. “People can see that others are speaking up and that there aren’t the repercussions that there used to be.”
The Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape is in the process of surveying hotlines statewide to see whether call volumes have increased. The results so far are mixed, said policy director Donna Greco, but some college campuses have seen dramatic increases of up to 75 percent more call volumes, she said.
The Pittsburgh Action Against Rape organization also has seen an increase in calls. One of the group’s billboards spotlighting a sexual assault survivor was even spray painted with “me too,” said executive director Alison Hall.
The real-life stories, such as those spotlighted in Time, “show that it goes across every single profession, every single demographic — regardless of who you are, you could experience this,” she said. “This has really demonstrated the widespread, heinousnature of this.”
One question now, said Ms. Trautmann, who also works with the Southwest PA Says No More organization, is where to go from here.
“We need to change our policies and change our practices to honor this movement and ensure that we’re making the most of it in the long term,” she said, referencing advocacy efforts toward engaging men in the effort and toward raising awareness among middle and high school students. “There’s a lot of hunger for making sure that this is not a passing thing.”