Kean Professor discusses #MeToo Movement

By Salimah McCullough | Published March 1, 2018

Many celebrities and well-known people around the world have been taking to social media in the last few months to share their stories about sexual harassment and abuse to help raise awareness of the current #MeToo movement.

But sexual harassment isn’t something that just occurs in Hollywood to celebrities. It happens in the workplace, in universities and it could even happen in someone’s classroom.

That’s what one Kean University student, who asked to remain anonymous because of the nature of this article, discovered. As a 12-yearold girl, she was groped in a tutoring session by a religious leader whom she thought she could trust.

It happened when she and other students turned off the lights in the classroom before a session and hid as a part of an innocent prank.

“The religious leader who was teaching us played along and pretended he couldn’t see us,” she recalled. “…He came up to me questioning if I was my brother. I replied laughing saying no. Obviously, it was a girl’s voice, so it was ridiculous for him to think I was still my brother.”

She knew he could clearly see her, but he proceeded to say, “I’ll know how you’re your brother or not,” and he then “squeezed on one of my breasts and walked away laughing.” Later she learned he did the same to another girl in the classroom.

After this incident, the student said she didn’t feel as though she could return to the sessions.

“I spent a while not going back to that religious center, because everyone praised him for being such a ‘great man’ when no one knew how repulsive he was,” she recalled.

Even though the victim was young, she was old enough to know that what happened to her wasn’t ok, yet she felt as though she couldn’t say anything about it. “I only told my mother, but she told me not to say anything because everyone would think we were lying.”

In the era of the #MeToo movement, Dr. Emily Filardo, Coordinator of Women’s and Gender Studies and Associate Professor of Psychology said that we can’t just look at the victims of sexual harassment as an individual issue.

“We have to look at it as a society instead of individually and what we are doing together to make it safe to speak up and to know you’ll get support if you speak up,” said Filardo.

Many women, and even men, have been victims of sexual harassment, but not all victims feel safe to speak up out of fear or retaliation.

“There are many reasonable reasons why many women don’t report these things at the time they happen,” said Filardo. “The fact that many women may not have reported it has been used as a reason to not believe them.”

In the workplace, sexual harassment can sometimes be a daily occurrence. Many women can find themselves stuck between having a job that involves getting sexually harassed or not having a job and struggling to make ends meet.

“This is happening to waitresses in restaurants and factory workers. It doesn’t just happen in Hollywood,” said Filardo. “You’re working somewhere for tips, your customers are sexually harassing you, you need them to still tip you… That’s another issue where women don’t have the freedom to say, “hey bud, stop” or report it because they need that tip money.”

A campaign called Living Off Tips is trying to help raise the tipped minimum wage which would benefit workers especially women. Dr. Filardo believes that this would make it possible for women to speak up when being sexually harassed at their workplace. “

There was an article in the New York Times about women working in factories in Chicago, who deal with constant harassment not just from their boss but also from their fellow male workers. They’ve been fighting it and they can’t just leave their jobs,” said Filardo.

The #MeToo movement is a movement that has been going on in our world longer than people realize. Many believe that it started on Twitter in 2017 but it originally was started in 2006 when a woman named Tarana Burke created the phrase on Myspace.

#MeToo gained a huge social media following shortly after dozens of women accused popular film producer Harvey Weinstein with sexual harassment and even rape.

“I’m hopeful and optimistic,” said Filardo about the Me Too movement today. “But only if people continue to organize, band together, and speak up. Also, male allies can help a lot. Men who are already allies in their hearts can speak up more.”

Filardo has seen a growing interest in the Women’s and Gender studies program especially following the rise of this movement.

“There has been a huge growth of interest in Women’s and Gender studies for the last year or two. Students are becoming more interested and open to it. A lot of students are understanding that this is about all of us and involves them too,” said Filardo.

Most institutions have policies dealing with sexual harassment giving students multiple ways to reach out and get help if they are ever harassed.

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Here at Kean University, students can do several things to get help:

1. Visit the Counseling Center (Downs Hall 127) or Health Services (Downs Hall 126)

2. If you aren’t able to visit those offices in person, you can call them as well. Health Services (908-737-4880) and Counseling Center (908-737- 4850)

3. Following the incident, you should go to a safe place and get medical help immediately (if needed)

4. Seek emotional help from someone you trust and never blame yourself.

5. Visit www.kean.edu/ policies/Sexual-AssaultMisconduct-Violence for more information on Kean University’s policies on sexual harassment.

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