The Limits of #METOO

The headline streamed across computer screens and across social media: “Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades.” No big news outlet had dared take down such a high-profile Hollywood producer. Suddenly, #MeToo began trending on Twitter, typed out by thousands of women across the U.S. It was no longer one man, but a system protecting abusive men that was being dismantled. Many women remember this period as one that inspired deep feelings of hope in them. Today, the hashtag is used frequently, but without the same impact across the board as it once had.

In America, the #MeToo movement started in October 2017, when the New York Times broke the story of the Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s multiple sexual misconducts. The article provided a summary going back 30 years detailing Weinstein’s sexual harassment and assault of women that had been deliberately covered up for years. Followed by several modelsand actresses, the movement gained momentum and eventually led to other major actors and producers being named as sexual harassers and assaulters. #MeToo went from a Hollywood-led movement to all areas of society and eventually beyond America’s borders.

The #MeToo movement brought the problem of sexual harassment and assault to the surface. The constant stream of people in power being outed empowered women to speak out about the many instances of these behaviors that they encountered in their daily lives. In fact, new disturbing statistics were released following #MeToo: in a nationwide survey conducted by the group Stop Street Harassment, 81 percent of women in the U.S. experienced some form of sexual harassment or assault in their lives.

The impact of sexual violence lasts much longer than the moment it occurs. According to a 1999 study on violence against women, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is likely in 50 to 95 percent of rape cases. An earlier study revealed that 50 percent of rape victims lost or were forced to quit their jobs in the year following their rapes because of the severity of their reactions. What’s more, according to the BBC, studies have shown that two out of three sexual assaults are never reported.

Though getting beyond the long history of victim-blaming will take longer than a year, many felt liberated by the hashtag. AUP student Beatrice Spencer, who has been a victim of serious sexual harassment, explains, “Because of the #MeToo movement, I’m able to gain closure of the fact that what happened [to me] was not okay and shouldn’t have happened. There’s nothing that was my fault.” This period of time proved the capabilities of social change through social media.

Unfortunately, with recent events in America, #MeToo has shown its limitations. Not only did a candidate for the United States presidency brag about grabbing women “by the pussy,” but he went on to win. October 2018 became an emotional journey after Dr Christine Blasey Ford accused Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, of sexually assaulting her 36 years ago at a high school party. Dr Ford testified in front of the US Supreme Court for an excruciating four hours, reliving every detail from the encounter. After three weeks and an official investigation, Kavanaugh was still appointed to the most powerful court in America.

The limitations of the #MeToo movement have not just shown themselves in America. Across the globe, the movement has impacted people in limited ways, or sometimes not at all.

In Hinduism, India’s dominant religion, there are no less than 33 million gods. With so many gods by their side, onewould hope that most of them are on their way to achieving moksh, or nirvana. Yet, every day Indians wake up to gruesome news. In a country populated by 1.3 billion, violence against women and children is as normalized as having your afternoon chai.

Though violence is common, the #MeToo movement caught on quickly in India, specifically in the film industry. In 2017 the Malayalam film industry based in Kerala started a Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) organization, even before the Weinstein case came to light, in order to address gender issues in the industry. The women in Malayalam took a stand of solidarity when an actor named Gopalakrishnan Padmanabhan Pillai (stage name Dileep) was accused of hiring people to kidnap and gang rape a Malayalam actress. He spent two months in jail, and after failing to be formally charged, he was released on bail. However, on October 21, 2018, he was removed from the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA).

Since this story broke, a wave of stories with the #MeToo hashtag have flooded the news in India, especially in the Bollywood film industry. It started with actress Tanushree Dutta and director Vinta Nanda coming forward and naming high-profile actors Nana Patekar and Alok Nath in sexual harassment allegations. This was followed by many women coming out every day with their stories slamming well-known actors. Often, the accused are super stars of Indian cinema, whose pictures are kept by fans next to a picture of their god(s). Hero worshipping is a big thing in India. In fact, for certain superstars, people wait outside theaters at four in the morning with milk and garlands to pay their respects to the movies, which often only have a male lead.

This has had two extreme outcomes. On one hand, the production houses of the accused are being forced to shut down, and producers are coming up with new contracts in an attempt to prevent sexual violence in the workplace. However, as actress Parvathy Thiruvoth Kottuvata has openly stated, women are also being side-lined, called troublesome actresses, slut shamed and receiving death threats. For women who choose to speak out, it is often the end of an acting career.

While India has made progress in holding sexual assaulters accountable, unfortunately, in many countries people are either unaware of the hashtag entirely or cultural and religious beliefs stop survivors from coming forward at all. The silence of women who live in countries with high rates of sexual harassment and assault tends to be covered by those who, as has been seen in America, are safe from harm or further harassment when reporting assaults. This is also the case in Africa, where, according to a 2016 World Bank report, about a third of women report having experienced domestic violence (physical or social).

According to Yasmina Diakite, an AUP student from West Africa,the #MeToo movement has shown little progress across the African continent. Coming from Burkina Faso, which borders Ghana, Diakite explains that the lack of information regarding the social movement may come from a lack in education and development on a larger scale. “We are one of those countries in West Africa that is late on development and education,” she says, which is why she is “99 percent sure that most people don’t know about the #MeToo movement.”

Sexual violence is prevalent in the West African and South African regions. As of 2015, three out of four women in South Africa had experienced some form of abuse in the past year, according to Actionaid. A study conducted by Ghana Statistical Services and Associates in 2016 concluded that 30 percent of women had experienced sexual violence in their lifetime, and 10.6 percent of women reported experiencing it in the past 12 months.

According to Diakite, the limited impact of the movement in countries like Burkina Faso or Ghana is due to an overall view of women as inferior to men instead of just the prevalence of domestic violence. She explains that even if a woman chooses to report violence at a police station, “They won’t really do anything about it because it’s not as if men and woman are equal.” Diakite’s cousin was trying to find a job and applied but was immediately met with sexual harassment by her potential boss. “It has happened to most of us,” she explains, “it’s the norm.”

Although #MeToo has not yet reached Africa to the same extent as other countries, there are certain groups that are trying to make that change. “There is

a slow dialogue happening there,” confirms Diakite, “NGOs made small clinics and there are midwives holding sessions giving information about everything from sexual health to providing aid to the victims.”

In Brazil, two years before the #MeToo movement took off in America, the hashtag #MeuPrimeiroAssedio (#MyFirstHarrassment) had begun trending. In five days, the hashtag had been used in 82,000 tweets and inspired a range of other hashtags throughout Latin America. Marina Françolin, an AUP junior from Brazil, confirmed that the “#MeToo movement had its moment in Brazil.”

Though many women told their stories, Brazil remains a country tainted by sexual violence and racism. Sexual harassment has been a crime in Brazil since 2001, but not much has been done to enforce it or penalize harassers. Françolin described the blatant ignorance of the police to sexual harassment, saying that her friend had reported a sexual assault directly to the women’s police station: “She waited six to seven months for a reply, and then found out that there were other women filing complaints against the same man.” On top of general inequality between the genders, afaulty judicial system adds to this normalization of sexual harassment and assault.

The systematic racism in the country also discriminates heavily against Afro-Brazilian women, who make up 25 percent of the population. The Mapa da Violencia from 2012, a survey of those affected by violence in Brazil, found that the number of black women killed in Brazil has risen 54 percent in the past 10 years.

Brazil’s recently elected president Jair Bolsonaro has perpetuated the already rampant racism and violence in the country by speaking violently against the LGBTQ+ community and threatening assault. Since October 7, 2018, his words have encouraged more than 70 attacks fueled by misogyny and homophobia.

“Brazil has a big problem with abuse,” Françolin says, “Bolsonaro himself has abused so many women on camera as the president, much like Trump.” Bolsonaro has taken it further than ever before, threatening death upon those who speak against him. “These are very scary, dark times in Brazil.”

With different economic, social and cultural factors, each country is impacted differently by #MeToo. In this sense, social media movements are vastly limited — just because #MeToo can catch on in one society does not guarantee the same response in another. The power of social media may never have been so strong, but as the story of #MeToo reveals, some of us may be more connected than others).

BY NITYA SHRIKANT

ILLUSTRATIONS BY SOPHIA FOERSTER