Till it happens to you, you don’t know how it feels
How it feels
Till it happens to you, you won’t know
It won’t be real
No, it won’t be real
Won’t know how it feels

-Lady Gaga, The Hunting Ground

In Australia in the ’60s, people heralded the time of “free love” and the sexual revolution. With people expressing themselves with short skirts and hairy legs.

To me, this time, right now, the time where we tweet, use fidget spinners and make slime is the sexual revolution.
But this time around it’s not about opening yourself to the scandalous possibility of dating a black man or getting pregnant before the age of 18. This sexual revolution, in 2017, is about the “sexual revolution” that defaces women and blames them for the assault brought on by their attackers.

It would be hard enough to experience the kind of sexual assault as an individual. But in the public place that is Hollywood, where your every move is broadcast live on TMZ, it makes the victims more sheltered and delayed in their reactions to assault.

Recently on Twitter the hashtag #MeToo has been trending since celebrity Alyssa Milano vowed to show the broad number of women who have experienced sexual assault in their lifetime. By hashtagging #MeToo all around social media, more and more people are coming forward to explain the circumstances of their assault whether it be minor or whether it affected them and the lives they may have wanted to lead.

I’ve noticed recently that television shows and popular songs even have terrible connotations and references to rape and assault. The media tends to glamourize it, and once women step in to allege any kind of assault, it’s usually hidden in a sly joke in a sitcom or broadcast on social media for the whole world to see.

Something as simple as the show 30 Rock, written by famed comedian Tina Fey, had references to Harvey Weinstein assaulting women even in the early 2000s.

There’s instances throughout history where women have refused to stand up for their kin. It’s kind of sad to think about it, but where men sometimes show comradery towards each other for being manly, it seems that women gather in large groups to collectively share a burden.

When a president vows to take away our reproductive rights and grab our cats without asking.

When a serial rapist threatens the careers and well beings of our favorite actresses and idols.

Or when a man, any man uses his position of power to manipulate the careers and livelihoods of young women, just because he can.

Battered bruised and assaulted women – 0
The men who unfortunately get away with it – 1