Imagine if we lived in a world where men owned up to their actions after they’ve raped someone or a world where the term ‘rape culture’ isn’t something we’re all painfully familiar with. Can you picture it? A world without rape? 

But sadly, we have yet to make progress on the culture surrounding rape. No matter how many hashtags  trend on social media,the fact of the matter is, we are in need of change but a hashtag won’t necessarily get us there.

In wake of the dozens of celebrities coming forward about the sexual assault or harassment inflicted by director Harvey Weinstein, a 10-year-old campaign has resurfaced with a powerful debut on social media. With Weinstein finally being exposed after years of the abuse he inflicted, it is encouraging other women to come forward about their abusers. 

This includes women like Olympic gold medal gymnast McKayla Maroney and the abuse she endured from her team doctor, as well as other women, 38 to be exact, exposing director James Toback of sexual harassment. The fact that Weinstein was outed for his disgusting behavior encouraged other women to do the same with their abusers, which is a huge step forward.  

The ‘Me Too’ hashtag made it to the trending topics page on Twitter on Oct.16 with the idea that, “if all women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too’ as a status, we might give people a sense of magnitude of the problem.” This specific campaign was launched 10 years ago by black activist Tarana Burke, according to Quartz. Burke explains the point of the campaign as “a catchphrase to be used from survivor to survivor to let folks know that they were not alone and that a movement for radical healing was happening and possible.”            Thousands of women took to their social media accounts to let people know that they  are a part of this large demographic. Many women went into the details of their attack when others simply wrote #MeToo. Despite the thousands of women who did tweet ‘Me Too,’ there are thousands more who didn’t let their followers know that they are also survivors of sexual assault. 

This isn’t the first time a hashtag like this, regarding sexual assault, has made its way to social media. #YesAllWomen and #BeenRapedNeverReported are examples of campaigns that brought the attention to rape culture and just how widespread it really is – and yet we still see no change. We have seen time and time again just how many women have been victims of sexual assault but no action was taken against the aggressor. 

There are many people out there who want more than just a hashtag. One of these people includes Megan Nolan, a writer for Vice. Nolan wrote an article about this topic and shared the same opinion many had, “The problem is not that women have trouble considering themselves victims of sexual violence, but that men have trouble considering themselves as the aggressor,” said Nolan. 

In all honesty, this sentence could not be more true. Survivors have no problem admitting to be victims but you don’t see the perpetrator claiming responsibility for their atrocious actions. 

Women took to this hashtag for many reasons, leading the hashtag to gain tons of support, rightfully so. The ‘Me Too’ hashtag empowers women and helps them find courage and a community they relate to. It’s easy to see that the aim for this hashtag is to spread awareness – but how much more awareness do we need? 

With the amount of awareness brought to this topic, if a person isn’t aware of rape culture at this point, it’s because they don’t want to be. A hashtag is not going to change that.