Collective Action against Sexual Harassment
When I first read this article from October, I thought that the act of firing Harvey Weinstein would be the culmination of the story. I honestly thought that the “#MeToo” hashtag was just a phase, without a lot of power to effect change, and that in a month people would move on to the next sensation. But I was very wrong, as public acknowledgement of sexual harassment has persisted until today, and shows no signs of fading soon. Every day there are new revelations and accusations of sexual harassment against high-profile men. It seems like the trend started some time around Hugh Hefner’s death and the first accusation against Weinstein, but I couldn’t find an article that actually investigated this growing phenomenon.
In class we spoke a little bit about collective action, and the textbook goes into more detail about how the risk involved in taking part in a certain action can affect whether or not the action is actually constructive. The topic of sexual harassment is fraught, in that society often tends to vilify victims, literally adding insult to injury. So coming forward as a victim of sexual assault, and making an accusation is actually a risk people take. In a lot of ways, people who are coming forward are very similar to people who participate in revolts under an oppressive regime. And I think that the phenomenon of people coming forward as victims of sexual assault is one that gathers more power as more people join in. A few victims stepping forward may not be taken seriously, or people may think that they are lying. The problem of sexual harassment remains unacknowledged, or worse, acknowledged but dismissed as a series of isolated, unrelated incidents, instead of being recognized as a symptom of a toxic culture. But as more and more people use the hashtag “#MeToo, ” it becomes harder to doubt the claims of any one individual. More people participating makes it harder to doubt a single individual. Additionally, once there are enough people that it becomes clear that these are not isolated incidents, it could become harder to victim-blame or victim-shame; or, at the very least, people subjected to victim-blaming or victim-shaming will not have to face it in isolation. In conclusion, I was wrong about “#MeToo” being a phase. The movement has gathered enough momentum to hopefully effect lasting change in the way society works.