#MeToo whistle blowers named ‘person of the year’
WOMEN and men who spoke out against harassment and abuse as part of the #MeToo movement have collectively been named Time magazine’s Person of the Year.
The group, dubbed the ‘Silence Breakers’, are praised for giving ‘voice to open secrets, for moving whisper networks onto social networks, for pushing us all to stop accepting the unacceptable’.
Numerous women have spoken out publicly since October about sexual misconduct accusing dozens of highprofile men in entertainment, media, business and sports.
The magazine’s latest cover features five of these women, including Hollywood star Ashley Judd, 49, one of the first to speak out against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. She accused him of asking her to watch him shower naked.
Alongside is pop star Taylor Swift, 27, who won a civil case against DJ David Mueller after accusing him of grabbing her bottom as they posed for a photo.
The #MeToo hashtag started as a show of solidarity as dozens of alleged victims of Weinstein went public. Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal said: ‘This is the fastest-moving social change we’ve seen in decades.’
He told US network NBC’s Today programme that it ‘began with individual acts of courage by hundreds of women – and some men, too – who came forward to tell their own stories’.
Miss Judd and Miss Swift are featured with Susan Fowler, 26, a former Uber engineer whose sexual harassment allegation brought down the firm’s CEO Travis Kalanick, Also on the cover are Adama Iwu, 40, a US corporate lobbyist who spearheaded a campaign against a culture of harassment in the Californian government. Meanwhile a 42-year-old strawberry picker from Mexico who used the pseudonym Isabel Pascual to speak out against a stalker is pictured.
Time also featured British political journalist Jane Merrick whose claims in October that Sir Michael Fallon had ‘lunged’ at her as a 29-year-old in 2003 led to his resignation as Defence Secretary. She was pictured alongside fellow Brits Zelda Perkins, 44, who accused Weinstein of sexually harassing her when she was his assistant, and Bex Bailey, the 25-year-old Labour activist who accused the party of hushing up her rape at a Labour event when she was 19. Former actor Blaise Godbe Lipman and director Terry Crews, who have both accused Hollywood agents of sexually assaulting them, are the two men represented in the magazine.
The 2017 tweets, Instagram and Facebook posts began after actress-activist Alyssa Milano followed up a suggestion from a friend on Facebook and tweeted: ‘If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write “me too” as a reply to this tweet.’
The hashtag was tweeted nearly a million times in 48 hours.
The two runners-up for Person of the Year were Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump, himself accused of sexual misconduct by several women. He has denied any wrongdoing. The #MeToo hashtag was originally founded by activist Tarana Burke a decade ago.
‘Fastest social change seen in decades’