Why Mexican Actresses are Joining the Me Too Movement

The popularity of the Me Too hashtag and movement, founded by assault survivor Tarana Burke, has encouraged women (and men) around the world to share their sexual assault stories and speak out to spread awareness.

One by one, women are stepping up and speaking out about their personal experiences with sexual assault that they have kept quiet about for so long. Starting in October of 2017, the Me Too movement virally grabbed people’s attention online as a hashtag used to bring the relevancy of sexual assault and harassment to light.

Recently, Mexican actresses have joined the movement and shared their stories on social media, such as Karla Souza, Paola Núñez, Stephanie Sigman, and Vanessa Marquez just to name a few.

The instances with these women have specifically happened in the entertainment industry. The How to Get Away With Murder star, Karla Souza, opened up to media outlets that she was raped by a director in just the beginning of her career in Mexico. “He knocked at my door saying he wanted to go over some scenes and I thought, ‘It’s 2 a.m. It’s not appropriate, and it’s something that shouldn’t be happening,’” Souza said in an interview with CNN en español. Since then, Televisa has cut all relations with with producer, Gustavo Loza. The company wrote in a statement, “Televisa will not tolerate conduct like that described today.”               

 Paola Núñez spoke with CNN about the assualt they had to deal with from male leaders in the entertainment industry. Núñez explained that the harassment from her director began with psychological, then progressed to sexual. The director had psychologically convinced her that the production did not think she was beautiful or talented enough for the role, and he fought for her to get the role. After several sexual advances from the director, Núñez resigned from the project after the director “demanded, that she show him, physically, that she deserved the role”.

On Instagram, actress America Ferrera posted her personal abuse story, “First time I can remember being sexually assaulted I was 9 years old. I told no one and lived with the shame and guilt thinking all along that I, a 9-year-old child, was somehow responsible for the actions of a grown man. I had to see this man on a daily basis for years to come. He would smile at me and wave, and I would hurry past him, my blood running cold, my guts carrying the burden of what only he & I knew — that he expected me to shut my mouth and smile back,” she wrote.

There are so many more stories out there just like the ones that these brave women have shared. This is just one step forward to getting more women to speak up and bring their stories to light too. We will not be silenced. #MeToo. 

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