One of the top trending hashtags on Twitter right now, #YesAllWomen, is becoming much more than a Twitter trend, it is now a nationwide movement.
The movement began after 22-year-old Elliot Rodger killed six people, injured 13, and then fatally shot himself on Friday, May 23 in Isla Vista, Calif near the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Rodger’s reason behind his killing spree was his obsession with rejection. In his YouTube video, Rodger blamed his loneliness on the cruelness of women.
In addition to his YouTube videos, Rodger left behind a 141-page manifesto.
In regards to a visit that Santa Barbara police gave to him prior to the events, he wrote, “I tactfully told them that it was all a misunderstanding, and they finally left. If they had demanded to search my room... That would have ended everything. For a few horrible seconds I thought it was all over.”
The #YesAllWomen Twitter controversy has had women all over the country tweeting their experiences with sexual, verbal or mental abuse they have faced from men.
The hashtag already reached over one million tweets less than a week after the killings and it is still gaining more tweets by the minute.
The tweets were originally directed towards misogyny and sexual violence, but they have expanded to just about every type of discrimination against women from career choices, to dress codes, to simply the fear of rejecting a male.
The #YesAllWomen trend was soon rebutted by the trend #NotAllMen where men have been expressing that “since they’re not like that, they don’t appreciate being viewed as a potential predator,” according to Lizabeth Paulat’s article on care2.com.
It was October of last year when two separate rape cases were investigated at Eastern Michigan University. Although both victims retracted their statements, this still demonstrates how relevant the issue is for students and citizens right in Ypsilanti.
The 2012 report from the government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated that nearly one in every five women (18.3 percent) would experience rape at some point in their life.
“Sixty colleges and universities across the U.S. are currently under investigation for violating the Title IX law by allegedly mishandling sexual-assault cases on campus,” said an article in businessweek.com.
