real life stories
Amanda Todd
Most of everyone that has Facebook or Twitter has heard of Amanda Todd, who took her own life on October 12, 2012.
Amanda posted a video to YouTube just a month before her suicide. In this video she describes how she had flashed a man using her webcam in seventh grade. The man then put the image online and sent it to everyone she knew. In the video she states that the bullying online and st school drove her into deep depression, alcohol, cutting and a suicide attempt with bleach.
A month shy of her 16th birthday, she hung herself.
Because of her peers shaming her on her decisions, calling her a slut and a whore, it drove her to kill herself. Yet still after her suicide, people and teens all over still slut shamed her, saying that she deserved it.
Amanda posted a video to YouTube just a month before her suicide. In this video she describes how she had flashed a man using her webcam in seventh grade. The man then put the image online and sent it to everyone she knew. In the video she states that the bullying online and st school drove her into deep depression, alcohol, cutting and a suicide attempt with bleach.
A month shy of her 16th birthday, she hung herself.
Because of her peers shaming her on her decisions, calling her a slut and a whore, it drove her to kill herself. Yet still after her suicide, people and teens all over still slut shamed her, saying that she deserved it.
Emma sulkowicz
Emma Sulkowicz is a senior visual arts student at Columbia University. On the first day of her sophomore year, she says, she was raped by a classmate on her mattress. Emma was raped in her own dorm bed and since then she feels like she's carried the weight of what happened there with her everywhere since that night.
Sulkowicz' Senior thesis was titled "Mattress Performance" or "Carry That Weight," is her literal expression of the emotional weight that she carries. She then said she would carry her mattress everywhere she goes on campus until her rapist is expelled or leaves. Emma says that the project could extend for one day or for the entire remainder of her time at Columbia.
When the case made it to a university hearing seven months after the actual incident occurred, administrators were confused about how anal rape could happen and she had to draw a diagram, this experience left her physically ill.
After this two other women came forward to say that the same man had raped them and that their cases were mishandled. Their alleged attacker was found not responsible by the university, and remains at the school.
"Carry That Weight" is a especially powerful protest against injustice, while also forcing her community to face the emotional and physical trauma of sexual assault. While one of her rules for the performance is that she can't ask for help carrying it around, Sulkowicz said that others are allowed to offer their help.
Although people probably say it was her fault, or she is lying about what happened, she is still fighting for justice for all women who are victim blamed.
Sulkowicz' Senior thesis was titled "Mattress Performance" or "Carry That Weight," is her literal expression of the emotional weight that she carries. She then said she would carry her mattress everywhere she goes on campus until her rapist is expelled or leaves. Emma says that the project could extend for one day or for the entire remainder of her time at Columbia.
When the case made it to a university hearing seven months after the actual incident occurred, administrators were confused about how anal rape could happen and she had to draw a diagram, this experience left her physically ill.
After this two other women came forward to say that the same man had raped them and that their cases were mishandled. Their alleged attacker was found not responsible by the university, and remains at the school.
"Carry That Weight" is a especially powerful protest against injustice, while also forcing her community to face the emotional and physical trauma of sexual assault. While one of her rules for the performance is that she can't ask for help carrying it around, Sulkowicz said that others are allowed to offer their help.
Although people probably say it was her fault, or she is lying about what happened, she is still fighting for justice for all women who are victim blamed.