A fourth year student’s fun night out left her in tears after a traumatic experience leaving the bar.
Shannon Morgan, Media Information & Technoculture student at Western University, left the bar on January 5th to get some food and head home. Morgan was sexually harassed and assaulted 4 times before she stepped foot into her home.
Morgan explains, “As I’m kind of leaving the bar, some guy feels me up and grabs me, just cause they felt like it. I walked to Pita Pit and on my way there some guy cat calls me like really gross terms. And then in the Pita Pit 2 guys just kind of like held my coat and then reached up under it and then when I got into the cab, the cab driver started making all these comments about my appearance.”
After crying about what she had just experienced, Morgan decided to share her story on her Facebook page. She received an overwhelming number of responses, “I got like 20 messages from random people and friends just telling me, you know, the exact same thing happened to me.”
Morgan created an account on Instagram titled “My Night Out” that goes along with the trending hashtag she started #MyNightOut. Her story went viral, and since her experience, many young women have shared their stories; all sad realities of women spending a night out on the town.
Not only has Morgan received countless messages from victims of sexual harassment and assault. Multiple womens’ groups have reached out to her to share her experience with others.
Morgan says, “My advice to other women who want to speak out is to find a network of women who are going to support you and a network of men who are also going to support you. There’s no shame, you haven’t done anything to deserve the way you’ve been treated, just do what honestly makes you feel comfortable.”
Morgan continues to post stories of sexual harassment on her account @mynightout in order to create awareness of the issues young women face when they go out, as close as downtown London.
