Some revolutions are more obvious than others. Some involve violence and harassment. Other involve justice and real, everyday freedom.
Freedom such as the right to walk down the street and not be called names or subjected to cat-calls or sexual harassment of any form.
Yesterday, Egypt – a country famous for its innovative use of social media in the Arab Spring – started a campaign to end the sexual harassment of women on the streets. On Twitter, feminist and videographer Sally Zohney sent out this tweet just after midnight –
Tweeting and blogging day against sexual harassment has started. Use the hashtag #EndSH and share ur thoughts!
Soon the topic was trending and Twitter was full of suggestions, from ordinary men and women, for ways to stop this degrading practice. Harassmap – a website dedicated to mapping the incidents – along with other sites, encouraged women to send in the details of their experiences and women even began to tweet the stories of what was happening to them in real time.
As always, some people felt it was all a big waste of time. They argued that the people who use Twitter and Facebook are not the ones who do the harassing and that it would make no difference to anything, anyway.
Others – particularly women – disagreed.
A very positive thing about this campaign is the large number of men involved. Have a look at this –
I especially liked, “Has that ever worked for you?”
So did I – I loved the young men in that video – they just seem so tired of being seen as the same as men who abuse women – I’d hate to be lumped in with a load of people whose behaviour I found objectionable wouldn’t you?
Getting used to your new site… :-)✿♡✿Happy Father’s Day!
Same to you Elizabeth! 🙂