#itsonus – The tide against sexual harassment

Posted on by Sreyoshi Dey

In the US the ‘Its on US’ campaign supported by the White House has recently garnered a lot of attention. #ItsOnUs has become a popular and apt call out against sexual harassment in particular, asking members of the society, the bystanders, to be responsible individuals and report sexual assault particularly where college students are concerned.

Groped, touched, feeling violated – I grew up with it. Perhaps the shortcomings of growing up in a big bustling city. Sexual Harassment was and is a fact of life. But since the age that I realized what those unwelcoming physical actions meant, I had also taken up the pen if not the sword, and used my own muscle power where required, to be the tide against it. I spoke up. I still speak up. And no, I am not ashamed to talk about it.

Understandably, the hashtag of #ItsOnUs has had me intrigued and curious about what is it generating. It was heartening to see the number of measures and events that were being organized all across the US in support of the campaign and to spread awareness during the National Week of Action for Its On Us, and beyond. It broke across race, class, gender and other forms of discrimination to bring home the message of learning to put up a “NO” against sexual harassment. Following are some of the tweets which seemed to be effectively reaching out and spreading awareness about sexual harassment.

The tweet content upheld the statistics of the number of women and men who would be sexually assaulted in the country every minute. More so during their college days. Further, tweets were also shared with the content of how to communicate and behave with ‘victims’, a term I particularly do not approve of and would prefer to call survivors. (When no one called to be a victim, why tag them so.) These tweets pouring in from all across the country and particularly coursing through various university students, staffs and professors, was pertinent as the increasing number of such tweets by one’s peers also helped motivate and encourage survivors from keeping quiet about any such unprecedented incident and come forward, to talk. Perhaps one of the most difficult steps when confronting the fact of one’s own sexual harassment.

Explaining what is ‘consent’ was one of the top tweet contents. Videos like the one explaining ‘consent’ in terms of having ‘tea’ by  Rock Star Dinosaur Pirate Princess and Blue Seat Studios was one ingenious method of explaining in the most simplest of terms what ‘consent’ could mean. As a result the video was shared multiple times across Twitter.

Talking about sexual harassment often gender is looked upon as a major factor. However fact remains that irrespective of gender, sexual assault could happen with anyone. Many tweets therefore also focused on how only about 10% of the men who are sexually assaulted would ever speak up, perhaps because of the socialization process where “boys’ don’t cry”. Angry tweets about universities hiding facts and figures pertaining to sexual assault on campus were also a subject of tweets using the hashtag #ItsOnUs.

While the message associated with #ItsOnUs was loud and clear and barely any tweets were found to have an opposing view. What was interesting was perhaps to find how #ItsOnUS, which was being used by the entire nation for a call against sexual harassment, could find misuses in the form of the below mentioned tweet.

On further investigation into the users profile it was found that the user’s tweet came in response to changes being made to footballer Jameis Winston‘s Wikipedia page. The user in this tweet essentially mocks the hashtag and suggests that the Wikipedia page was altered to suit the story line of the documentary ‘The Hunting Ground’. An article in the Washington Examiner claimed that Edward Patrick Alva, a crew member for The Hunting Ground had been altering the Wikipedia page of the footballer for months.

Considering the popularity of the documentary which spotlights on-campus sexual assaults around the country, and its close association with #ItsOnUs, this was a tweet upholding an opposing view.

Further on the #ItsOnUs was also found to be used on sparing occasions by people to tweet about games and team wins, having received a surprise gift and even as a call for fashion statement.

The use of #Itsonus in the above tweet could not be ascertained for sure. However, in this case it could be speculated that the #ItsOnUs was used to highlight the factor where the clothes website was perhaps promoting certain looks and providing with some discounted offers, or the user was simply underlining how making a winter fashion statement was completely dependent on ‘us’ the people. This rings in the possibility that #ItsOnUs has perhaps been previously used on many occasions and has had different meanings for users, as a result tweets like the one above was generated, where the user may have been completely unaware of what the #ItsOnUs was being used for.

However over the month of November, when the #ItsOnUs was observed for tweets, it was found that that very few tweets diverted from the conversation revolving around sexual harassment, and almost none talked against the campaign. There were tweets with opposing views for the documentary The Hunting Ground, however they were not tagged with #ItsOnUs and therefore could not be considered. On reflection it would be seen as a successful social media campaign and propagation of the agenda surrounding on-campus sexual assault in the US.

9 thoughts on “#itsonus – The tide against sexual harassment”

  2. It is refreshing to see that although a few people misconstrued the actual hashtag, that it was able to spread the message of awareness without really being corrupted by any negativity. Another very important issue you raised is that men rarely report sexual assault, which is necessary to remember that men too can be victims.

  3. Really really awesome blog post. Good for you for being so open and honest about your experiences with sexual harassment– half of fixing the problem is addressing the fact that there is a problem, and nothing’s going to change if people don’t speak up. one of my favorite #ItsOnUs videos is from college humor; i thought you might like it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/college-humor-its-on-us_563ce06ae4b0411d3070c730?section=women&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000046

  4. Thank you for sharing this post. It gives me hope seeing how the #ItsOnUs campaign has compelled so many to get involved in raising awareness about sexual assault. Even though it is a difficult topic to discuss, it is an important conversation that must be addressed.

  6. #ItsOnUs has been very successful with its social presence. It is such a serious and important issue that college students need to continue to learn about and be aware of the frequency in which these type of cases happen. Raising awareness is key.

  7. I think you did a fantastic job with this post. As a member of a greek organization my chapter and I have been very involved in the #ItsOnUs campaign. I loved reading this post and seeing others, all across the United States, actively raising awareness on Twitter. I found Kim Lenhart’s tweet to be extremely impactful. Your post also raises awareness of another issue, aside from sexual assault on college campuses, and that is the issue of misusing hashtags. All in all – great read and very well executed.

  8. Great post on a very important topic. It is very important to talk about this issue, and you did a great job doing so. You provided a really good overview of the tweets that have generated surrounding the #ItsOnUs hashtag, and I found it interesting that you included tweets using the hashtag entirely differently. Thanks for sharing!

  9. I like the way you unpack this social media tide. Sexual harassment is a very heavy social problem, and it is glad to see that people are becoming more and more open to talk about it on social media. Together we can make a change. Hopefully victims of sexual harassment are no longer afraid of reporting this crime and are feeling support from both people around him/her and broader online communities.

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