#WomenBoycottTwitter. Celebrities, Journalists, and Citizens alike decided to do a day-long boycott of Twitter to protest the platform's decision to temporarily suspend the account of actress Rose McGowan. She claims she wasn't able to access her account for 12 hours after she shared her experiences of harassment with Harvey Weinstein. Many Twitter users rallied behind McGowan including Chrissy Teagan and Jessica Chastain. Donald Trump is allowed to use the platform to attack individuals like Jemele Hill and basically, try to start nuclear wars with North Korea but never once has it been against their "policies." Twitter's attempt to silence McGowan is just another way our society tries to belittle us. It was an attempt to strip us of our voice and our right to speak out any way we see fit.
To be truthful, this is normally something that I would probably have ignored because I prefer to beat people down with my words, but "silence is an argument carried out by other means." I've recently had an experience with a troll that made me think differently about this situation. I’ve never met a man that held such misogynistic views. He couldn’t pull his head out of his own ass long enough to catch a breath. He played the "what about" game. What about women that take free drinks and dinners from men and don’t expect them to collect? What about women that go home with their rapists? What about women who start having sex but expect a man to stop if she changes her mind? He insisted multiple times that when rape happens women only have themselves to blame.
He couldn't sense his own hypocrisy when he then claimed that only men are the true victims. Although 1 in 6 women have experienced attempted or completed rape his argument was that men had it worse. His argument was that these cases didn’t have any real evidence and many were false accusations. He failed to see the irony of how his attempts to discredit and silence me only further proved my point. He called me a narcissist for referring to myself as a queen. He became angry when I told him I refuse to dim my light so that he could shine brighter.
My favorite poem, “Our Deepest Fear,” by Marianne Williamson only second to “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou give me so much confidence in situations like these. You can ask my mother or any of my siblings that when I truly believe in something or just myself I don’t back down. In fact, the only way you could make me is if you put a bullet in my brain and even then I’ll be sure to haunt your ass for the rest of your life. This boycott has allowed me to approach things from a new perspective. Women are beautiful. Women are incredible. Women have so much strength. I get it though. If I was a man I would be scared too. Though you may try with all your might to knock us down, still we rise.
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