ABOUT TIME: A YEAR OF RECKONING
a sense of the magnitude of the problem.” Then she went to bed.
“I couldn’t have been in bed more than eight hours, because I’m a mom,” Milano said now. When she awoke, tens of thousands had taken up the #MeToo hashtag (a phrase introduced 10 years ago by social activist Tarana Burke.) Less than 10 days later, Milano tweeted that more than 1.7 million people in 85 countries had used the hashtag.
It began, she said, with the election of President Donald Trump, who had bragged openly about groping women. On top of that came some aggressive investigative reporting and the domino effect of women emboldening each other to come forward. Public fascination with anything Hollywood didn’t hurt either.
As the weeks went on, the accusers multiplied, and so did the accused, from Hollywood (Kevin Spacey, Louis C.K., Brett Ratner, Dustin Hoffman) to the news business (top morning hosts Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer) to the music world (Russell Simmons) to politics and to the food world (Mario Batali). The accused lost jobs, TV shows, book deals with dizzying speed (Spacey was even erased from a completed movie.)
Some simply apologized, while others fought back—like Simmons, with his hashtag #NotMe. Some apologies were more effective than others. Spacey drew flak for deciding to come out as gay as he apologized for unwanted sexual advances; Batali was scorned for appending to his email-blast apology a recipe for Pizza Dough Cinnamon Rolls.
A few voices called for differentiating between levels of sexual misconduct. It didn’t always go over well.
When Matt Damon said “I just think we have to start delineating between what these behaviors are,” Milano replied on Twitter that there are various stages of cancer, “but it’s still cancer.”
SHE STARTED THE HASHTAG. She didn’t coin the #MeToo hashtag; it was created a decade ago. But when Alyssa Milano sent the first #MeToo tweet this year, millions followed.