'Me Too' Resonates on the East End

The actress Alyssa Milano took to Twitter with a post Sunday night that a friend of a friend had suggested sharing in light of the Harvey Weinstein scandal.

"If you've been sexually harassed or assaulted write 'me too' as a reply to this tweet," Ms. Milano said. By Monday night, more than 55,000 people had declared "me too." Some simply left it at that, while others shared details of rape, sexual assault, or harassment across social media.

The hashtag was tweeted nearly a million times in 48 hours, according to Twitter, with stories or reposts flowing onto Facebook and Instagram. Currently, more than 12 million women — and some men — across the world have raised their hands online to be counted as victims of sexual assault and harassment, highlighting the pervasiveness of the problem.

Among the big names to post a "me too" hashtag were Debra Messing, Anna Paquin, Lady Gaga, Monica Lewinsky, Jennifer Beals, and the Broadway actor Javier Munoz.

But the absolute imbalance of power at the top of Tinsel Town is hardly news. What became news, in this case, was how many women across small towns stepped forward to utter those two words. Suddenly, the issue was small screen, not big screen, ushered from the Oval Office to the cubicle, to Main Street, to the living room, the school, the quad, the community center, the bus stop — places where scores of women have been harassed, or worse. And by whom? No one famous, no one offering women a shot at an Oscar. No powerhungry moguls. Just ordinary men with enough power to silence women.

Around the East End, one of the loudest voices on the "me too" thread belonged to Kate Mueth, the founder of the Neo-Political Cowgirls, a women's dance theater company, a nonprofit organization that aims to create a space for women and girls to process their experiences, concerns, and spirit into dance theater for an audience.

Ms. Mueth's Monday morning post read: "Me too. I'm part of this brutal redundancy. At 18, the guy who raped me stalked me and came up on my porch when he knew I was all alone at night. He wrapped his hands tight around my ballerina neck, put his forehead against mine while staring hard into my eyes, and coldly told me he'd kill me and my family if I told anyone . . . so yeah, let's all shine a light on these grotesque maneuvers and put a hard stop to it asap."

When a few male voices responded with some version of "don't hate me because I'm a man," Ms. Mueth answered angrily, "Geez, women really just can't get a break. Twenty-four hours of 'me too' and already we've got the people putting the brakes on women's rage with 'not all men.' Apparently women can be mad about life-shattering abuses, but we can't be mad for too long."

Ms. Mueth is not alone in believing that sexual predation needs to be addressed by a collective rage, not individual shame. East Hampton Town Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez joined the thread and posted a "me too."

"I was struck by the need to show the magnitude of the issue," she said by phone. "When I was 21 and living in Manhattan, unfortunately I was groped on the subway numerous times, and then so many more subtle things that happened in the workplace. I remember my mother sat me down and said, 'It's a man's world.' "

Ms. Burke-Gonzalez admitted, sadly, that even today she needed to have a similar conversation with her 17-year-old daughter because of the paucity of women in high-ranking roles.

"There's just not enough of us in elected office." Barbara Borsack, an East Hampton Village Board member, also expressed her views on Facebook. "This has been a problem forever — men in powerful positions getting away with this disgusting behavior. It will only stop when other men stop allowing it," she wrote.

Encouraging men to take responsibility seems to be growing on social media.

Liz Plank, a journalist and executive producer of the show "Divided States of Women" at Vox Media, recently wrote on Twitter, "It's actually a man's issue," and started trending the hashtag "HimThough," adding, "Why is the burden always on women? I'm done pretending sexual assault is a woman's issue. Your shame is not ours. No sir. #HimThough."

At the Retreat, an East Hampton organization that provides services to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault on eastern Long Island, the executive director, Loretta Davis, agreed.

While she sees the "me too" movement as a good start, even a revelation, she believes that it is simply not enough. "We need a cultural shift. We need to redefine strength and what it means to be a man or perhaps a partner. Strength means respect." As such, the Retreat offers prevention education programs that include a Fatherhood Initiative, in which young men learn parenting and partnership skills.

Nicole Behrens, a former board president at the Retreat who has experienced such abuse, echoes the growing sentiment that perpetrators need to be held accountable. "Men need to stand up and shout 'No more!' " she wrote in an email. "The world suffers, not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of good ones."

Observing the "me too" fire ignite with a keen professional eye is Mary Bromley, a psychotherapist with a private practice in East Hampton. Ms. Bromley, who has practiced for more than 30 years, specializes in working with adults and teenagers — boys and girls — who are victims of sexual assault.

She said that she is unable to recall a movement that has helped unify women against all aspects of sexual humiliation and misconduct such as this one. She believes one of the reasons "me too" went viral with such dispatch is that virtually every woman has experienced it in some form.

"This is a rare opportunity to shine a light on sexual trauma," she said. "Social media, for all of its negatives, is also a vehicle for people to feel connected and less alone. 'Me too' is including the 'lower level' trauma of everyday life that most of us took for granted. Groping on the subway, indecent exposure, catcalling, inappropriate and confusing sexual innuendos, men masturbating on the subway or bus.

These shared stories will empower girls to speak out loudly." In fact, Ms. Milano has been erroneously credited as the originator of "me too." Tarana Burke, an African-American activist, began the crusade in 1996, particularly for women of color. Today Ms. Burke is the program director for Girls for Gender Equity in Brooklyn and the founder of the Me Too movement, started as a grassroots effort to aid sexual assault survivors in underprivileged communities, she said in an interview with Ebony magazine.

"It wasn't built to be a viral campaign or a hashtag that is here today and forgotten tomorrow," she said.

Whether or not the hashtag will slip away from the collective cultural consciousness remains to be seen. For now, it has given women an opportunity to move out of shame and into anger. And for the world to witness the ubiquity of the problem.