#WhenIWas: Women Are Sharing Heartbreaking Stories of Sexism and Violence on Twitter

The movement exposes just how early we deal with harassment.

Woman typing on laptop
(Image credit: Marie Claire)

Women are opening up on Twitter to share stories of sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual violence from their childhood and beyond. The UK-based Everyday Sexism Project encouraged women to share their stories Tuesday with the hashtag #WhenIWas to show how early in their lives women deal with harassment.

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Women tweeted stories about being catcalled, groped, and assaulted.

"We're often told not to make a fuss about street harassment or that we're getting upset about nothing if we talk about media sexism, but you can see from the stories we receive that these things have a [domino] effect," Bates told The Huffington Post. "When you normalize these everyday pinpricks, they create an environment that makes the more serious incidents possible."

Here are some of the powerful tweets:

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Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, applauded the women for sharing their stories.

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We couldn't agree more.

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Kate Storey

Kate Storey is a contributing editor at Marie Claire and writer-at-large at Esquire magazine, where she covers culture and politics. Kate's writing has appeared in ELLE, Harper's BAZAAR, Town & Country, and Cosmopolitan, and her first book comes out in summer 2023.