#MeToo and the Politics of Social Change

by Bianca Fileborn (editor), Rachel Loney-Howes (Editor)

#MeToo has sparked a global re-emergence of sexual violence activism and politics. This edited collection uses the #MeToo movement as a starting point for interrogating contemporary debates in anti-sexual violence activism and justice-seeking. It draws together 19 accessible chapters from academics, practitioners, and sexual violence activists across the globe to provide diverse, critical, and nuanced perspectives on the broader implications of the movement. It taps into wider conversations about the nature, history, and complexities of anti-rape and anti-sexual harassment politics, including the limitations of the movement including in the global South. It features both internationally recognised and emerging academics from across the fields of criminology, media and communications, film studies, gender and queer studies, and law and will appeal broadly to the academic community, activists, and beyond.

Genres: Politics

376 pages, Paperback

Published September 26, 2019

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN EXCELLENT AND DIVERSE SERIES OF ESSAYS

Editors Bianca Fileborn and Rachel Loney-Howes wrote in the Introduction to this 2019 book, “The flood of participation in #MeToo reaffirmed publicly just how widespread sexual assault and harassment actually are; that most victim-survivors know the offender; and, significantly, that these experiences are ROUTINE and NORMALIZED, in short, confirming many feminist arguments about ‘rape culture.’ … In this introductory chapter, we discuss the emergence of and responses to the #MeToo movement, placing it in dialogue with historical critiques of feminist efforts to raise awareness about sexual harassment and violence. Our intention here is to establish a critical framework through which to examine the #MeToo movement---and feminist activism and justice efforts to address sexual violence more broadly---and consider the potentials, limitations, complexities and necessities of social, cultural, political and legal changes.” (Pg. 2-3)

Later, they add, “The final question we would like to ask is: what is different about the #MeToo campaign? We have been here before. Not only have there been decades of feminist activism, law reform projects and bodies of research documenting the nature and extent of sexual violence, but there have also been previous iterations of #MeToo… there are challenges involved in movement momentum, which social movement scholars have long reflected on… What space---if any---does #MeToo open up for future activism? Certainly, some developments in the wake of the campaign … do point toward the potential for longer-term, structural and cultural change. However… we should also question what success looks like for a diffuse movement that does not necessarily have a set of definitive aims or shared goals… Likewise, is it possible for one movement to achieve some sense of justice in response to the broad and diverse needs and experiences of victim-survivors?” (Pg. 10-11)

Loney-Hawes notes in a separate essay, “historically one of the most significant problems with the practice of speaking out is that only SOME victim-survivors have had access to platforms from which to share their personal experiences in the public sphere… Typically, there individuals have been white, middle-class, heterosexual women who exhibit the hallmarks of good victimhood.” (Pg. 30)

K. Mendes and J. Ringrose observe, “#MeToo … represented a ‘breaking point’ for some, and this was articulated in a range of ways… #MeToo was not simply about individual empowerment, but was done because of the recognition that ‘nothing will change unless we act collectively.’ These points are temporally marked by a sense of urgency and immediacy, which are generalized via a sense of an avalanche of responses and chiming in with a wave of discussion.” (Pg. 40)

J. Gleeson and B. Turner acknowledge, “There is an element of safety and accountability in face-to-face consciousness-raising groups that cannot be recreated online. When we move consciousness-raising groups online, we accept that our stories may no longer be private, nor ephemeral, and that our performance is open for a mixed audience… However, by tagging our posts on Twitter with #MeToo… they in turn make it easier for others to share their stories and feel less alone. This solidarity creates a sense of safety for women to share their stories, and it is the knowledge that they are not alone that reassures and (potentially) empowers them.” (Pg. 64)

T. Ryan points out, “When #MeToo is expressed from the perspective of a Black Woman, it becomes more than a feminist fight for justice over harassment and assault. It becomes a conversation about intersectionality---the illumination of multiple layers of power and oppression. It brings to light arguments around Black versus White feminist that exist because the experiences of Black Women in fighting against male dominance have a different lens to those of White Women, and White feminists are often blind to this difference in lived experience.” (Pg. 118)

N. Kagal and others state, “Women are commonly obliged to weight up a variety of factors when considering disclosing violence: we have explored how fear of unemployment prevents survivors from saying #MeToo in workplace settings… Muslim women living in the UK have experienced increased levels of hate crimes… Given that the climate in Europe is increasingly hostile toward Muslim communities, stoked by political and media commentary, what happens when minoritized Muslim women say #MeToo in Western society? In particular what is the response of the white patriarchal establishment to their statements of hurt and demands for justice?” (Pg. 139)

J. Ison observes, “Hearing #MeToo only within the heterosexual context isolates queer people who have experienced sexual assault not just from outside the community but from other queer people in our communities. Further, LGBTQIA people face many unique issues on account of our gender and sexuality, as well as intersections with other marginalized positions such as race or ability… there is a growing field of data and advocacy examining some ways LGBTQIA people experience sexual assault and violence, which demonstrates that there are similar, and at times higher levels of violence in queer communities compared to heterosexual people.” (Pg. 152-153)

L. Rosewarne states, “Criticizing the movement as unable to make change is, of course, premised on the assumption that it every set out to achieve revolution rather than to exclusively raise consciousness. If, therefore, drawing attention to a problem was its main objective… then the movement can unquestionably be considered a resounding success. But if there is a genuine desire to make change, the movement needs to transition from being geared around confessionals and start to create infrastructure to formulate objectives like targets, funding objectives and policy change. Until a clear picture of the movement’s goals emerges, it is impossible to truly evaluate success.” (Pg. 177-178)

After the development of the Shi-ty Media Men list, “Many critiques centered on issues of due process or the apparent lack thereof. One of the key claims … was that the creators of the … list … were negligent in the process of verification that were asked of contributors… [Andrew] Sullivan involved McCarthyism… [Moira] Donegan refuted this, arguing that, as her list did not hold any enforcement power it did not need to meet normative evidentiary standards, particularly as its aim was to warn potential victims rather than punish reported perpetrators.” (Pg. 206-207)

H. Matthews points out, “The analytic of the sex panic can help us unpack the ways in which the #MeToo movement might come with a host of political costs that we have, as yet, barely anticipated, and that we should not accept. Sex panics---a version or moral panic---describe persistent conflicts over sex with recurrent, structural features… we can see here how Weinstein figures as a social threat, one that triggers a panic because … it makes visible something we knew was there all along; the widespread structural shielding of sexually inappropriate conduct by powerful men in certain industries.” (Pg. 270-271)

M. Flood says, “There is a troublingly widespread concern about young men, in particular, being the victims of false allegations. A survey among US adults … found that more than half were EQUALLY concerned for victimized women and falsely accused men, while one in six were MORE concerned about falsely accused men… #MeToo does not seem to have dented men’s belief in false allegations. If anything, this belief has worsened over the past year… The belief that men are often the victims of women’s false allegations of harassment and assault contributes to the wider perception that #MeToo has ‘gone too far.’… It should not surprise us that significant numbers of men see themselves as the victims of an unjust #MeToo regime, given the prevalence of anti-feminist beliefs in male disadvantage.” (Pg. 289-291)

Loney-Howes and Fileborn conclude, “The ability to reach any kind of definitive conclusions about the movement … is furthered hindered by the fact that #MeToo is still a live activist movement---a ‘work in progress,’ if you will… we are heartened by the momentum generated by #MeToo and the continuous stream of stories in news media about sexual violence, consent, and gender… However… we wish to conclude… with caution. Although #MeToo has been successful at putting sexual harassment and violence on the public policy agenda in some capacity… consciousness-raising alone does not equate to social, cultural, and political change… Further, any apparent achievements of the movement should not be overstated. The gains of #MeToo have been largely discursive in nature…” (Pg. 336-338)

This book will be of great interest to anyone studying the #MeToo movement---particularly as it relates to a more ‘diverse’ (e.g., nonwhite, LGBTQIA) population than #MeToo sometimes appears to feature.