Discussion of sexual assault must continue after #MeToo hashtag

“I was 13, he was 19.”

“I was a child, too scared to speak.”

“I was told it was normal, [and] not to cry.”

These are just a few snippets of what women have been tweeting since the rise of the new Twitter trend #MeToo. After the recent flood of sexual assault allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein and other high-profile men such as Kevin Spacey, George H.W. Bush and Mark Halperin, thousands of women have posted their own experiences with sexual assault and harassment under this hashtag.

Since its inception, the #MeToo movement has been invaluable in demonstrating how heartbreakingly common sexual harassment and assault are. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 400,000 Americans were sexually assaulted in 2015 alone. However, many victims feel violated, ashamed, and compelled to remain silent: only one-third of sexual assault crimes in 2015 were reported to the police. Although #MeToo has reflected the magnitude of this issue, it has not fostered real progress in how our society treats sexual crime. Raising awareness may be the first step to change, but it certainly is not the only step. In order to create a lasting change, we must continue the conversation about sexual misconduct beyond the Internet.

In fact, #MeToo is not the first hashtag raising our awareness of sexual harassment, gripping the nation’s short attention span. In May 2014, #YesAllWomen coalesced in response to the Isla Vista killings, a shooting rampage perpetrated by a man who felt rejected by women. Like #MeToo, the hashtag prompted thousands of women to come forward with their experiences of sexual harassment and sexism.

Many people praised the movement for catalyzing change in how society talks about sexual crime. However, #YesAllWomen lost steam several days after its peak without making any noticeable impact offline. Here we are, three years later, with an almost identical movement— and like #YesAllWomen, #MeToo threatens to fade into obscurity just as quickly as it rose to fame. Google searches for the hashtag have already dropped to three percent of their peak level, according to Google Trends.

#MeToo has started the conversation about dealing with sexual misconduct, but we need to take it offline to keep it going. We must not dismiss the discussion along with the hashtag. Victims of sexual misconduct deserve to be listened to for more than the short lifespan of a mere hashtag.