COLUMBUS (WCMH) — “Me Too” is the sudden, nearly explosive movement giving women courage in the face of harassment and discrimination.
Women are finding their voices and the ability to say “it happened to me, too.” Now, a state lawmaker wants to take the movement to the next level. 35-years after she became a silent victim, she is using her own trauma to help other women and promote change at the Ohio Statehouse.
Toledo area Representative Teresa Fedor delivered an impassioned speech on the House floor nearly three years ago, during debate on the controversial Heartbeat abortion bill that bans abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detectable. Fedor tried in vain to convince her colleagues to make an exception for victims of rape, and in doing so suddenly revealed that she had been a victim of rape more than three decades ago while serving in the military. “I have heard all these stories that fit your scenario,” she said, “but, you don’t respect my reason, my rape, my abortion.”
Fedor talked to me about the unplanned speech, revealing for the first time what was on her mind and in her heart the day she found herself publicly discussing the rape that she had kept secret for decades.
“Something inside me just couldn’t sit there any longer, almost 17 years of being condemned. And, God loves me too,” said Fedor.
Fedor says she is speaking now for other women who were raped in the military, and for the young women who are now revealing what she calls “the hostile work environment” inside the Statehouse. In the past several months two state lawmakers and a high-ranking administrator have resigned in the midst of sexual harassment scandals. Fedor says the current sexual harassment policy, which was written and enforced by men, “is not worth the paper it was written on.” She wants the policy to be refined and expanded, and she is fighting for mandatory sexual harassment training for all state employees.
Fedor says the “Me Too” movement is giving her hope for change and she wants young women to “not stand on my shoulders, but launch from them.” Fedor says she wants women to speak up and join the Me Too Movement. “I am so hopeful. “Me Too” is like wow, there are more mes. Me Too.”
In the coming weeks we will be sharing more Me Too Movement stories about pay inequity, workplace discrimination and harassment, in the hopes that shining a light on the issue will keep a new generation of women from ever having to say “me too.”