The Power of a Hashtag: #YesAllWomen

By SheSpeaksTeam May 27, 2014

Social media recently proved once again that it’s a powerful tool for communication again. It started after the horrible shooting at UCLA in Santa Barbara on Friday night, when Elliot Rodger, aged 22, went on a shooting rampage and killed six people before shooting himself.

As the evidence started to unfold, we were introduced to ugly videos on YouTube, PUAHate.com, and BodyBuilding.com. and Rodger's manifesto, in which he declared his hatred for all women entitled “My Twisted World."

Women immediately took to Twitter to react. #YesAllWomen has provided a forum for women about sexism, intimidation, gender violence and other injustices. The tweets are not about Elliot Rodger’s crime directly but they instead talk to the kind of misogyny that led to this hate crime. Thousands and thousands of women have shared their experiences and the result is very powerful. Here are a few examples:

Men are chiming in, too, and are included in the million plus tweets accumulating on Twitter. Many understand:

The power of Twitter has once again been proven by providing a community with a clear forum to discuss their feelings and strive toward making a difference. The struggle over one man's killing spree may prove to be a watershed moment in the history of feminism, which always has been and is struggling to be heard. Media is surely taking note and hearing thousands of women's voices that were never heard before and most likely progress will made as the result of this tragedy.

If you have a few moments today, head to the hashtag and spend some time reading the tweets and don't forget the crime and its victim that led to this important conversation.