Blog Post & Shameless Plug

One thing that has made a huge impact on my life in the past few years is the #MeToo movement, so I knew I wanted to focus my final project on that somehow. Here's a little background information from my paper so far:

 "The Me Too movement was founded in 2006 by Tarana Burke, a black woman who first stepped into activism in 1989 after she graduated from Alabama State University. After talking to survivors of sexual violence and being one herself, she realized there was a type of advocacy that only people who understood the intricacies of such trauma could reach—she realized it began with speaking up and owning her story. The name for this movement became “me too” as a tribute to a young girl named Heaven who left Burke without words when she told her she had been sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriend. Burke states she wishes she could go back and say, “me too.” Me Too was created to help survivors of sexual violence, particularly women of color from low wealth communities, find pathways to healing. Burke’s vision from the beginning was to address the lack of resources for survivors and to build a community of advocates, driven by survivors, who would be at the forefront of creating solutions to interrupt sexual violence in their homes and communities."

I've always been interested in the idea of storytelling. I grew up holding onto my grandma's leg as she stood over the stove, cooking some unknown heavenly meal, and told me stories from her childhood. As I got older, I realized that some stories were viewed as "better" in the world, and some people weren't allowed to share their stories at all. I realized that no matter the topic, the world listens less to the voice of a woman. 

The Me Too movement has allowed countless women to lift their voices and really be heard, but I've recently noticed that this movement is proof of a larger problem we have as a nation (and, as a world). Sexual violence is a subject that is too often silenced and stigmatized, and I agree that we needed the Me Too movement to happen in order to face this issue head on. But--I also believe that sexual violence, and the pay gap, and unfair reproductive rights (shall the list go on?) are all symptoms of a patriarchal society where women are silenced. At some point, we have to attack the root. Because of this, I'm hoping we can harness the momentum of this movement to move beyond #MeToo, in order to allow every woman to share every story she holds within her--and be heard.

For my project, I'm taking the idea of "amplification" (women highlighting or drawing attention to other women's ideas, stories, successes, etc. in order to help women as a whole reach a wider audience) and applying it to women that I personally know, whether they're family, friends, classmates, teachers, etc. Each person who volunteers will send me a video (can be just audio) of them telling the story of a difficult moment in their life and how it specifically affected them as a woman. I originally planned to focus all of these stories around sexual violence, but a few people were interested in being a part of this project with other difficult stories to tell and I wanted them to be heard, too. After listening to the videos, I'll be pulling out important /powerful quotes and displaying them in a creative way that represents the main ideas and emotions of both the story and the storyteller. (See @sophia.joan.short on Instagram for examples of how the quotes will be displayed.) I'm then going to create an Instagram account called "Beyond Me Too" to display each story. The actual picture will be the creative quote piece itself, and the caption will be a slightly more in depth version of each person's story.

If you're interested in participating or want to know more, please reach out to me! You get to choose whether you want to display your name or remain anonymous, so don't let that keep you away. My main goal is to help women feel more heard and valued, so everything will be very individual focused. I'll also be showing the final product to each participant first to make sure the quotes I chose accurately represent them and their story. This is about YOU!

If you want to join me, or you even just have some questions, please reach out to me at:

email: adozie01@

cell: (304)820-8593