#MeToo movement: will it last?
It’s thrilling, the plumb line that extends from the Women’s March last January to the cover of Time magazine this week honouring as persons of the year the “Silence Breakers” and participants in the #MeToo movement.
Among those featured in the magazine’s tribute to a growing movement uncovering sexual assault and harassment in the workplace are Ashley Judd, the first prominent actor to publicly name now disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein as a predator; singer Taylor Swift, who took a groper to court; and activist Tarana Burke, who founded the original #MeToo movement in 2006, before actor Alyssa Milano reinvigorated it online.
They stand in solidarity with many relatively unknown women — hotel workers, dishwashers, tech workers now speaking out against harassment.
Their decision to talk publicly to the New York Times and the New Yorker in explosive pieces of investigative reporting, helped topple some of the biggest names in media and entertainment — producer Weinstein, before him Fox host Bill O’Reilly, and after him CBS’s Charlie Rose, NBC’s Matt Lauer, all of whom are accused of abusing their power to sexually harass women. Think back to the march. On the heels of Donald Trump being elected U.S. president, even after being heard clearly on an audiotape bragging about how he was such a star he could grab a woman’s “pussy,” came that surging sea of pink. Or as the Star’s memorable headline put it: “She the People.”
Millions of women, young and old, many of them wearing now iconic pink “pussyhats” together with children and male allies, assembled in Washington D.C. and in cities all over the world — including more than 30 locations in Canada from Bowen Island, B.C., to Charlottetown, P.E.I. — in one of the largest mass demonstrations in history.
The march was not just an impressively peaceful and positive protest to the new administration in Washington featuring a myriad of causes from immigration to racial equality, it was a rally to energize women, to alert them to the threat of what was ahead, to build a strong resistance. Some signs they carried pointed to today’s reckoning: “Think outside my box.” “Pussy grabs back.” “Sexual assault is not locker room talk.” “Women on fire.” “Rise up.”
Could we have foretold it would also lead to scores of powerful men in the entertainment business, the media, tech and politics — U.S. Democratic Sen. Al Franken, accused of impropriety, just announced his resignation — losing jobs, reputations and power after years of treating women as sexual objects who were there to fulfil their needs, however craven?
For women, it’s a violation, for some men, business as usual
Open bathrobes, men getting naked in private business meetings, unzipping, masturbation, stepping out of the shower, show me your . . . everyone sleeps with me, stand up and twirl, give me a massage, do you have sex with your boyfriend a lot, don’t leave, I won’t do it again, what are you wearing, come back here, I could help you in your career, give me a kiss, I won’t do it again. Again. Again. Again.
From the streets to comfortably decorated living rooms, all you needed to do these past months is listen to women. The stories were pouring out.
Twice recently I came away numb from dinner tables, once with media colleagues after listening to tales of incest, attempted rape in the back of a truck, a famous athlete trying to take his pants off while being interviewed in a hotel room, a boss on a train masturbating in front of his female subordinate who until that moment had been excited about her business trip.
Why is it that every woman re- members being preyed upon and groped, and most men at first say they just don’t recall doing it? For women, it’s a violation, for some men, business as usual.
Another dinner I went to featured the subway chronicles — a whole subset of stories that revolve around women being harassed on subways. Even as grandmothers, women can summon up the visceral fear they felt as young women — suddenly sprinting out of one car and into another to avoid a menacing man.
We used to think those guys on the subway were random perverts, and the guys in the corner office were not. But the Weinstein story and many other tales of office predation have changed that notion. From Time magazine: “Women have had it with bosses and coworkers who not only cross boundaries but don’t even seem to know that boundaries exist. They’ve had it with the fear of retaliation, of being blackballed, of being fired from a job they can’t afford to lose. They’ve had it with the code of going along to get along . . . These silence breakers have started a revolution of refusal.”
Will this “revolution of refusal,” which sure sounds impressive, last? Or will women get tired again and say “oh well.” Will it morph into something that hurts innocent people?
If you want to be inspired, watch a New York Times Talk, “Uncovering Sexual Harassment,” which features appearances by investigative reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey who broke the Weinstein story last October.
Both mothers with little children, they talked about texting each other far into the night and early morning, babies in arms, so they could get the story right. It also featured Emily Steel, the New York Times reporter who broke, with her colleague Mike Schmidt, the story of massive payouts to the women that Fox News host Bill O’Reilly had harassed. He lost his job.
These women said they were stunned by the “power of seeing that pattern” of abuse by powerful men. A pattern that absolutely could not have gone unnoticed by those who served and enabled them. Right now is indeed a key moment. Almost a year ago, millions of women poured onto the street, carrying their experiences with them. In Toronto, one sign read: “A better world is possible.”
This time, it feels as if that might be true. Judith Timson writes weekly about cultural, social and political issues. You can reach her at judith.timson@sympatico.ca and follow her on Twitter @judithtimson.