The Impact Of #MeToo

If you think the #MeToo movement was about just getting men in power fired...you are surely wrong.

It's a movement empowering women to start to publicly come out against sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and other allegations of sex crimes.

Millions of women joined together in solidarity to speak out against the heinous crimes they have been enduring in the workplace. The movement's momentum has left a lasting imprint on the world. Let's break down the positive effects the #MeToo movement has left on the world.

The Spark That Started It All

The movement started when Alyssa Milano hashtagged the phrase "Me too" on Twitter. At the end of the first day, it was retweeted or shared more than 200,000 times. Soon after, it was tweeted more than 500,000. On the Facebook platform, the hashtag was shared by more than 4.7 million people in 12 million posts during the first 24 hours.

Hundreds of allegations against celebrities, authoritative figures, artists, and many powerful men in power. Mainstream media covered all of the scandals and set the entire world on fire. The movement had so much momentum...but as time passed and other world problems replaced the buzz… there were still many positive lasting changes.

Here are some of the ways the #MeToo movement changed the world.

Policies and Laws To Prevent Sexual Harassment

After #MeToo, new national legislation, reforms to existing laws, and increased commitment to implementation.

Many States have implemented mandatory training requirements for each company. In fact, if businesses did not properly train their employees, they could receive fines. For example, in California, the Fair Employment and Housing Act requires employers with five or more employees to provide at a minimum of 2 hours of sexual harassment prevention training to all supervisory employees and at least one hour of training to nonsupervisory employees every 2 years. Employers must properly educate employees about workplace policies and what constitutes harassment in California.

New York now mandates that all employers need to provide annual interactive sexual harassment prevention training to employees. In New York City, all employers with 15 or more employees or independent contractors are required to provide annual, interactive, anti–sexual harassment training.

Delaware mandates that employers with 50 or more employees need to provide interactive sexual harassment training to all employees.

Other states are catching on and putting in place rules to educate employees. States should stop or ban violence and harassment in the workplace with policies. This can be taken in the form of prevention campaigns, investigations for victim complaints, and help them secure remedies.

States should take every precautionary measure to ensure that employers have workplace policies that address violence or harassment, by putting into place risk assessments, prevention measures and training.

Gave Women The Strength To Seek Support

The movement has helped women who suffered from abuse seek support. The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network or RAINN, a US crisis hotline, had an increase of calls coming in from October to December 2017 by 23% in comparison to the same time frame in 2016.

Although there are many arguments that the movement brought up past traumas and pains from sexual abuse, the women who reported the incidents have stated it has helped them cope. The majority of the women say they feel encouraged to seek support and talk to family or counselors for help.

Around the world, different variations of the words, #MeToo started to populate social media. In countries where women are notoriously taken advantage of have started to develop a voice. Let’s continue to push the positive impact this movement has begun by continuing to create and enforce policies in support.