From Anne with an E to Broken Strings: Let’s See How Far Our Society Has Evolved

Trigger Warning: This piece contains discussion of sexual assault and grooming

Anne and her classmates initiated a movement for freedom of speech (pic: Northwood Entertainment/ Anne with an E)

Avonlea, 1899

Anne‘s bold opinion article titled What Is Fair? (pic: Northwood Entertainment/ Anne with an E)

I’m just rewatching my favorite show, Anne with an E. Whenever I wanna watch something with a light conflict and warmth vibe, I will go straight to Anne with an E. And today, I reached season 3 episode 7, where Anne triggered a serious scandal about feminism, censorship, personal conviction, and community resistance.

The scandal began when Anne published a bold opinion article about women’s rights and injustice after a troubling incident involving her classmate, Josie Pye. The town reacted very harshly. Shaped by the culture, her classmates and even Josie Pye herself responded with discomfort and resistance.

Anne’s intention was simple: to seek justice for Josie. She understood Josie had been assaulted by Billy Andrews, yet it was Josie who suffered the consequences when Billy spread a rumor to protect his own reputation. While Billy remained untouchable, Josie’s name was damaged despite being the victim. The imbalance was impossible to ignore.

What followed was even more unsettling. Josie’s mom warned her that she now had a ‘reputation’, limiting her future and her choice. Josie’s dad apologized to Billy’s family because of the scandal, pleading for acceptance. While Billy’s dad calmly planned to find a ‘better’ match for Billy. The responsibility and the shame fell entirely on Josie.

Set in 1899, Avonlea portrays a realistic society in that era, where progressive thought was considered disruptive. And women who spoke up faced critique, backlash, or worse, silence. What makes this episode unsettling is not how distant it feels, but how familiar. More than a century later, versions of this mindset still exist.

Indonesia, 2026

Broken Strings by Aurélie Moeremans | Goodreads

Moving into another hobby of mine: reading books. Recently, I finished Broken Strings by Aurélie Moeremans, an independently published digital memoir in which she shares her experience as a victim of grooming. By choosing to tell her story publicly, Aurélie transforms a deeply personal past into something that reaches outward, offering recognition and solidarity to others who may have long felt unheard.

In the book, Aurélie revealed that she actually shared her experience on Facebook more than a decade earlier, only to be met with backlash from some netizens. Apparently, her post triggered the same response as Anne’s newspaper in Avonlea. Reading Broken Strings, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for young Aurélie, who had to confront an old, unevolved culture that still preferred silence over truth.

It took more than a decade, with the support of her husband, for Aurélie to feel brave enough to share her story again. This time, she chose a book rather than a single social media post. Through this format, she was able to tell her story comprehensively, allowing readers to truly understand the scope of trauma she experienced. And this time, she received overwhelming support. Has our culture finally evolved? I hope so.

I may not know the exact year Aurélie first posted her story on Facebook, but a decade-long gap matters. Language and awareness that were largely absent back then now exist. Terms like grooming, power imbalance, and trauma-informed were not widely understood at that time. Society clung to the idea that “if you behave correctly, bad things won’t happen to you”. In such a mindset, victim-blaming became the default response.

But today, thank God for the shifting of social media culture. Especially after the global impact of the #MeToo movement in 2017, the narrative has begun to change. More people now understand and accept the truth that “what happened to me wasn’t my fault”. Backlash still exists, but these conversations are no longer isolated. They are visible, shared, and collectively challenged.

Speaking up is never easy, especially on social media, where support and judgment often exist side by side. Sharing one’s story doesn’t guarantee justice, and cultural progress doesn’t eliminate victim-blaming overnight. But it does expose how deeply rooted these problems are, even after a century of supposed progress. Reminding us that while time has passed, not all attitudes have evolved.

So, thank you to Aurélie and to other brave survivors who chose to speak. Thank you for challenging romanticized narratives, traditional power structures, and the collective comfort of denial. Your voices give hope to those who once believed they had to endure in silence. From Avonlea to the digital age, your courage proves that speaking up has always been an act of resistance.