#MeToo: How this Movement unfolded?
On October 2017, actress Alyssa Milano popularized the word ‘me too’ when in her tweet she asked everyone to use this word to share their stories related to sexual harassment and assault and also credited activist, advocate for women’s rights and blogger Tarana Burke for initiating the ‘me too’ wave in 2006 when she used these two words. A day after this tweet, several people from different walks of life started sharing their traumatising stories using these words which became a popular movement with the addition of a hash sign — #metoo. But how did this movement turned into one? That’s what this piece is going to elaborate upon. Before going further, one should know the meaning of sexual harassment and rape because these terms are often confused with consensual sex and other activities, which unfortunately leads to the vicious culture of silence.
The term sexual harassment refers to unwanted sexual advances or favors in exchange for an advancement in a career. Rape also refers to non-consensual sex i.e. when someone forces himself/herself on the other. Since time immemorial, these crimes have been (and in fact still are) a part of all societies, they are seen as some sort of a private experience which victims should be ashamed of. But it’s only in recent times that these issues are called out. Due to societal/cultural pressure, the victim(s) is/are coerced to be silent but at a huge cost: victim blaming, shame, being asked questions like, “If you speak up, what will others say?”, “Where were you?” etc. or hearing comments like “You asked for it”, “You deserved it” and so on. It’s this silence culture that has led to usage of euphemisms like for rape it’s “abuse”, for harassment it is “inappropriate behaviour” and assault is “misconduct”. Perpetrators are given more importance than victims. But, on October 2017, something changed in the climate.
Ronan Farrow, the adopted son of director Woody Allen on October 23, 2017 published an investigative piece called “From Aggressive Overtures to Sexual Assault: Harvey Weinstein’s Accusers Tell Their Stories”. This article talked about as to how for more than twenty years, Weinstein’s behaviour towards women had been an open secret in Hollywood .. There had been previous attempts by many newspapers and magazines including The New Yorker but all of them fell short of concrete journalistic evidence. Post the release of this article, many actresses like Ashley Judd, Rose McGowan, Salma Hayek, Asia Argento etc. shared their stories of what Weinstein did to them. As is usually typical of high profile cases related to sexual harassment and assault, Weinstein denied all the allegations. However, as a backlash, all personalities cut ties with him and he was fired from his production company The Weinstein Company. His fashion designer wife Georgina Chapman divorced him. As this movement gained momentum, more such cases involving powerful people came to light, not only in the entertainment industry, but other professional fields like print media, academia etc.
The media in other countries also carried forward this movement by publishing numerous stories of victims. Back home in India, the #metoo movement gained momentum last year when actress Tanushree Dutta accused actor Nana Patekar of sexual harassment. She said that this wasn’t the first time she brought this up, she accused him first back in 2008, and she filed a complaint with CINTAA (Cine & TV Association) but no action was taken against him. She again raised allegations in 2013 but was ignored. But it was on September 2018 when Dutta brought those allegations that CINTAA apologised to her, and it snowballed from there. Many people from different walks of life shared their stories where powerful people were involved. In India, this movement was the prime news, which subdued the impact of other issues;
Another shocking case that was brought to the public was that which has been labelled as “India’s Women vs MJ Akbar”. A veteran journalist Priya Ramani and 16 other women went public in 2018 with sexual harassment allegations against the then Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar. Akbar filed a criminal defamation case against Ramani and others. However, women who worked in a newspaper he had founded came out with a statement accusing the journalist-turned-politician of encouraging a culture of misogyny and harassment.
The stories of Akbar’s predatory behaviour that emerged spanned three decades. They started with The Telegraph, a newspaper he founded in 1982, and grew in frequency during his years at The Asian Age, another paper he established, and spilled all the way into his last journalistic job at the India Today, which ended in 2014. Over the course of his decades in journalism, Akbar worked with numerous men and women. If everyone knew about his behaviour, how come no one brought it up earlier? And why, even now, does it seem like it is largely the women who are speaking up about what Akbar did? May be he was too powerful for people to raise their voice, a typical case that is being discussed here. Misuse of stature and position to victimize women. The outcome of this expose was that Akbar had to resign as Minister and he has filed a defamation case against Ramani and others.
This is the crux of agenda setting: to highlight a particular issue by publishing articles related to that for a sufficiently long period. In case of the # metoo movement the common agenda highlighted by most of the articles was that: Enough IS Enough. The victims and survivors of sexual abuse won’t live in this vicious culture of silence anymore. Another common factor observed during this movement was that the media mostly called out those individuals who were abusing their position just to prove their superiority and maintain their status quo. This whole event also showed the kind of mindset the perpetrators have towards the victims (mostly women). Considering them inferior or mere objects and using their power and status as the victims didn’t have the courage and resources to defend themselves and raise their voice against the crime.
Some conclusions can be drawn from this movement: it is important to debate and discuss issues that affect both the genders and also re-examine the cultural norms and practices so that the stigma on sexual crimes can be reduced. This movement had its flaws: since this movement was borne out of social media, only people who could afford the Internet got the opportunity to share their stories, leaving out the poor and vulnerable sections who suffer these crimes due to their status. Reporting about sexual harassment and assault can be tricky, since in these incidents, mostly the victim and the perpetrator are there and either of them can take advantage of a movement like #metoo and falsify their stories. But no movement or a revolution is perfect, there are and always will be limitations.
