Me Too: The Movement that Sparked The Debate About Sexual Abuse

MeToo movement is a social movement that wants to fight to bring an end to sexual violence and sexual assault that is being done against people, the success of this movement is to take a stand that objectifies individuals The movement is designed to help survivors of sexual assault, violence, and harassment that is happening to those who are at a disadvantage: people of color, women and girls, members of LGBQT community and other young women from low wealth communities find pathways to healing. In social movements, there are different social groups that have different statues and unfortunately, there are those who have more power and have the ability to move through society easier than others. Levchak (2019) discusses the difference between advantaged and disadvantaged groups, advantaged groups have greater access to social power and privilege based upon their membership because of their social status while on the other hand, disadvantaged groups are the opposite, their access to social power is limited or denied based on their lack of membership. I believe that is why people from disadvantaged groups are more likely to get targeted, they may often lack the access to resources and are scared, and due to their status, they are also overlooked, especially if they are being attacked by somebody in a position of power who has more wealth and has the ability to easily obtain resources (Levchak 2019: 1).

But they need to know that they are not alone, the purpose of the movement is to give survivors a helping hand, by giving them the resources that they may not have had before to help them continue to live and prosper given their tragedy. The movement provides a variety of resources: healing practices, and tool kits, and setting up local and national dedicated services that are safe spaces for survivors of sexual violence to be able to go to. Not only does the movement provide resources, but it also wants to empower survivors as well because being a survivor means something and that your past does not sum up the person that you are, and that they are not alone, they have a community of people to help them, a support system. The movement wants to also shed awareness by also educating others with the help of survivors, “a community of advocates driven by survivors” (Burke 2017: Me Too Movement). Survivors have overcome something very tragic and their stories mean something in which could also help others, so if a survivor is comfortable the movement would appreciate their perspective and their stories to be shared, this interim brings people together, Burke (2017) says “sexual violence is usually caused by someone the woman knows, so people should be educated from a young age that they have the right to say no to sexual contact from any person, even after repeat solicitations from an authority or spouse, and to report predatory behavior” (Burke 2017: Me Too Movement). The movement is pushing for there to be changed to laws and policies, “there needs to be changes to the system, the world is changing and laws, protocols should address and accommodate those changes” (Walker, 2019: Everyday Democracy). These laws will be implemented in schools, workplaces and in the general public, these laws will hold predators accountable, the movement is aiming for these changes to be permanent goals: processing all untested rape kits, re-examining local school policies, improving the vetting of teachers, and updating sexual harassment policies. With jobs that involve working with students, employees are to participate in fingerprinted analysis and background checks before being able to work.

The movement was first founded by Tarana Burke, back in 2006 when myspace was still an active social media site, she would often post the phrase “me too”, to shed light on her story and her experiences of being a sexual harassment survivor and use it as a way to branch out and relate to others who are going through the same struggles. Her main goal at the time was just to bring awareness to the notion that sexual harassment is becoming a very critical issue, where multiple black women are being targetted and nothing is being done. The movement received more media presence and popularity in October 2017, when actress Alyssa Milano started using Burke’s phrase and hashtagged it, #metoo on Twitter. With the hashtag she wrote, “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet, she was encouraging the spread of the message, she later found out that the hashtag had originally been posted by somebody already, Tarana Burke, so she went back on her twitter account and gave recognition to her, Milano wrote,’I was just made aware of an earlier #MeToo movement, and the origin story is equal parts heartbreaking and inspiring'(NBC News, 2018). The #metoo movement spread around the world and became an international voice, and within 24 hours, Facebook reported over 12 million posts comments and reactions (Khomami, 2017). The movement soon became an organization, and that organization became a database that houses legislative information, toolkits, and advocacy resources in an effort to aid those that have been sexually assaulted or abused. Although the organization is centralized online, there are speaking engagements and sensitivity lessons held in order to help women feel safer in school and work environments (Me Too, 2017). This all started in the wake of allegations being brought forward against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Alyssa Milano was a critic of the way things were being handled in Hollywood and believed she couldn’t just be the only one going through it. Hollywood was becoming iconic for understating the aggression to the female situation. Historically, the expectation of actresses to tolerate their male counterparts’ actions (no matter how belligerent, offensive, or hostile the interaction may be) has always been viewed as a baseline. However, this movement utilizes testimonies of traumatic experiences at the hands of men like Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, and Louis CK to demonstrate that this kind of exploitation happens at all levels, in and out of the movie-making industry (Khomami, 2017).

The #metoo movement has done many progressive things, for example: the act of states banning Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) that can otherwise protect aggressors in the instance of a sexual harassment claim has happened and due to that, women that are struggling financially won’t have to question selling their silence as opposed to standing up for themselves. As well as the movement toward ending tipped minimum wage that has been a part of our society since 1966 as a result of the economic state of the United States during the Vietnam War. Tipped minimum wage is a detriment to the working class because it only works on the premise of the company motto being “the customer is always right”; However, if someone is being harassed or taken advantage of by a customer, they may be hesitant to report it because they could lose out on the possibility of making a living wage.

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This movement wants to address unwanted and inappropriate sexual advances that are being done to women. Sexual violence and sexual harassment are two different things, but both are horrible acts. The Washington Post (Sepulveres, 2017) contrasts the difference between the two key terms sexual violence and sexual harrasment, “Sexual violence refers to sexual activity that occurs when consent is not given freely or obtained. Acts of sexual violence can come in the form of sexual assault, dating or intimate partner violence, fondling or unwanted sexual touching, attempted rape, and completed rape. Sexual harassment is “the unwanted sexual advances, requests for sexual behavior, including verbal or physical conduct of sexual nature”(Sepulveres 2017). This matter is becoming a social problem because it is progressing and victims are rising in numbers, it is not just affecting children and women but members of the LGQBT community. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2019) expresses that “44 percent of lesbians and 61 percent of bisexual women expereince rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner…26 percent of gay men and 37 percent of bisexual men experience rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner…47% of transgender people are sexually assaulted at some point in their lifetime” (CDC, 2019). New information is emerging everyday and not only is this matter happening on a local and national basis it is happening internationally, people are being targeted all over the world. In places like Nigeria where almost 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped and forced to work along with the militant regime Boko Haram, the #metoo movement was reoriented into #bringbackourgirls, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have successfully made negotiations and brought back about 100 girls (Matfess, 2017).

People are getting targeted at work, school and even in public spaces, predators are not shy and are willing to advance anywhere. Predators don’t have to be criminals they can be every day regular people, they just come from a place of power, a place of privilege, and usually prey on people who may be on the same level of them whether its within social class, their gender or even their race. Levchak (2019) brings up the topic of intersectionality theory, in which a person’s identity(gender, race, class and sexuality) works together to create disadvantages. Our identities intersect and contribute to our oppression and privilege. The two terms are intertwined and go hand in hand because privilege is “the unearned access to resources only readily available to some people as a result of their advantaged social group membership” and oppression is “a system that maintains advantage and disadvantage based on social group membership and operates on individual, institutional and cultural levels.” (Levchak, 2019). A person is at an advantage because when things are in their favor, they have greater access to things and a person is oppressed because they are at a disadvantage and do not easily get access to things. A person can be either oppressed or privilege due to their class, race or even gender. Women, children and those in the LGQBT are getting targeted at higher rates is because they are oppressed. Targeted by those who are privileged: men, people in higher social classes, people with higher authority whether its authority in the family, workplace or at school and other institutions.

Creator Tarana Burke and supporters have asked “men to call out bad behavior when they see it… and look back at your actions” (Burke 2017: Me Too Movement). Men shouldn’t just be bystanders, In Evans (2019), the author expresses how important the bystander effect is, if you witness something you should do something because not doing anything is doing something, and as a man let other men know when they are wrong, especially if they are harassing and not leaving a woman alone, “Bystander strategies engage others in prevention by increasing awareness and educating on how to intervene effectively and safely…individuals learn skills necessary in order to recognize behaviors or social situations that could potentially be violent or that support norms of violence, as well as how to change social norms safely and help to reduce potential future violence” (Evans, 2019: 2). Become allies with oppressed group: women, children, LGBQT community because their lives matter as well. Just because you’re not experiencing it first hand, does not take away the importance of the topic at hand. Levchak (2019) talks about collective action which is when a group works together to accomplish a common goal (Levchak, 2019). Wade Davis, a former NFL player turned activist, is an ally of the movement having stated that “It is not about women, it’s about us” (Salam, 2018). Davis went on to explain that the #metoo movement is the consequence of the inconsideration of an entire gender, and that it is a result of the male prerogative that women have been expected to tolerate over an infinitesimal number of generations. The #metoo movement inspired a great number of organizations and follow up movements, and two of the main movements that came about were the #howiwillchange and the #Ididthat movement, both of which were founded by men with the desire to better themselves and their peers in order to close the gap between men and women. These groups vie to be allies alongside women in their fight to be heard, and the members of these groups understand that although the issues that women are going through are not directly affecting them, the importance of how their actions and the actions of the men around them perpetuate an unsafe environment for women still matter.

The me too movement wouldn’t be a movement if it weren’t for the people behind it, their willingness to do something instead of waiting for help to come their way or for others, they are activists. An activist starts out by identifying a social change they believe in, an activist takes the time out of their daily life, putting their personal lives, their jobs and even their families on the back burner, they shift their focus from themselves onto other individuals or groups (Oliver, 1992). The importance of the action these activists are doing is to achieve social change that will help individuals or groups outside of themselves. When an activist is trying to make a change they need to have a clear sense of what they are trying to achieve and the tools they need to achieve these goals, they must prepare and organize every aspect of their movement (Oliver, 1992). A movement goes through four stages of development: emergence, coalescence, bureaucratization, and decline. The first stage of a social movement is called emergence, this is the beginning stage, where the first idea comes into play (Christensen, 1), and this all started with Tarana Burke when she decided to post on her Myspace page and again when actress Alyssa Milano brought media attention to the topic. The second stage is called coalescence, in this stage social movements reach roadblocks and they must find ways to maneuver around these obstacles this stage is very critical because it can make or break the progress of a movement, “at this point leadership emerges and strategies for success are worked out” (Christensen 3). The me too movement has clearly stated what they are fighting for. They want to bring an end to sexual assault and sexual violence that is being targeted at marginalized groups: women, children, LGBQT community. Supporters are mobilizing in numbers from getting assistance from different social movement outlets such as Twitter, Facebook all using the hashtag, they are boosting the social movement and bringing more awareness to the cause. The third stage, bureaucratization is the stage where a movement has settled in after they have successfully handled all roadblocks that came their way and they have successfully raised awareness and are in the limelight but they must make sure they use their newfound status to further their agenda, they must now network and carry out their bigger functions since they now have the popularity to do so. (Christensen 3). When looking at the me too movements website they offer resources to survivors, with services and buildings that are safe havens all over the country, they offer training classes and tool kits. The movement also has events in which they go to different colleges and speak on the importance of the bystander effect and the different services they have. In April, 2019 they had presentation tour in which they visited historically black colleges such as Howard University, Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Alabama State University, North Carolina Central University and Florida A&M University, where they had survivors as guest speakers tell their stories (Me Too, 2017). The last stage is a decline, and the word itself has a negative connotation, like when something falls off but for social movements, it doesn’t necessarily always mean failure, a social movement can die out on a negative note or even a positive note, where achievement has been made and finalized and they are moving on. In this last stage, it has four ways a movement can decline. First, there is repression, which is when authorities or other agents act on violent means to end a movement like rioting or policemen shutting down a protest with gas and arresting people. Secondly, Cooptation which occurs when leaders of a movement integrate themselves too much by relating to their cause and lose the broad spectrum of their moment and just take on those personal values. Thirdly there is a success which is when a movement has achieved its goals and moved on. Lastly, there is a decline that defines itself as a movement ending due to failure or not being able to handle expansion and plummeted due to internal or external forces (Christensen 4). I believe the movement is on the verge of progressing and will not end anytime soon so they have not reached the decline stage, but for that particular stage, I believe the outcome will be a success, the future looks bright for this movement and with strength from international countries, and celebrities the movement will hopefully achieve their goal and move forward.