By Caroline Grant | ContributorActress Alyssa Milano spearheaded the “#MeToo” campaign on Twitter on October 15, a social justice movement dedicated to raising awareness for victims of sexual assault and harassment.Milano encouraged female victims of these crimes to come forth and tweet the phrase, “#MeToo.” Within 24 hours, the hashtag had been tweeted nearly half a million times. One of those tweets was posted by yours truly.Most women can identify with being catcalled, sexualized, objectified, or simply treated differently because of their gender. Whether it be on the receiving end of workroom chuckles because of how good your butt looks in the new uniform or getting catcalled on the street, sexual harassment is no new concept. But how frequently does it occur?According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center in a press release, it states that “one in five women and one in 71 men will be raped at some point in their lives.” In 2014, organization Stop Street Harassment commissioned a 2,000-person national survey in the USA. The survey found that 65% of all women had experienced street harassment. Among all women, 23% had been sexually touched, 20% had been followed, and 9% had been forced to do something sexual.In 2013, a study of 93,000 LGBTQ individuals in the European Union found that half avoided public spaces because of street harassment and most reported high levels of fear in locations like restaurants, public transportation, streets, parking lots, and parks. In 2009, 79% of LGBTQ hate crime victims were people of color, while 50% were transgender women.The day after Milano’s event began, I woke up to the phrase “Me Too” plastered across my Facebook feed, as it seemed like almost every woman I knew could relate to what I had also experienced. Not only did it increase the public’s knowledge of the issue at hand, but it raised awareness as to how often this is happening to women every day. As more actresses such as Angelina Jolie, Lupita Nyong'o, Reese Witherspoon, Rose McGowan and Rosario Dawson spoke out, more awareness was raised and the words “me too” became a symbol of solidarity.As the face of Harvey Weinstein plastered newsstands, it was comforting to see a global embrace of sisterhood, as though the world felt a little safer once we found a light in the dark.The women, men, and trans people of our generation have a new story to tell, and it doesn’t come with silence or shame. By breaking our silence, we break the stigma surrounding sexual harassment and abuse. No victim carries a desire to relive their traumatic experience by reiterating it; though when we do, we not only encourage the support of each other, but we encourage the support of survivors. We strengthen and empower each other by taking power back into our hands.That’s where it looks best anyways, right girls?Contact Caroline Grant at cargrant@augusta.edu.A version was published on October 26, 2017, in Volume 60, Issue 1, of The Bell Ringer newspaper.